


for as long as i shall live

by popnographic



Category: Free!, The Age of Adaline (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-05-16 03:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19309618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popnographic/pseuds/popnographic
Summary: When Gou ended up in a car accident, it should really have killed her. Instead, what should have been the end became the start of forever.





	1. prologue

She should’ve known after the accident that something just wasn’t right if she was able to walk away from it still alive. The car crash had caused her car, with her in it, to drive off the road straight down into a freezing cold lake, and Gou _knows_ she died right then and there, merely minutes after falling into the water. But when she opened her eyes again and saw the lightning in the sky above, she knew a miracle had just happened to her, and that’s why she was able to swim back to the surface, drag herself up to safe ground, and survive an accident that should have definitely killed her and let her stay dead.

The first sign that something was wrong was that the snow was falling and it was in the middle of August. Gou had only thought of how beautiful it was to see the big snowflakes slowly descend; some would get stuck on her windshield, some fell to the ground below. The incongruity of snow in August had most likely been what distracted Gou from looking where she drove, and that was how she ended up driving off the side of the road—and crashing.

Despite the difficulties in the few days that followed, Gou kept on living her life like normal, thankful she hadn’t lost her life that day. Who would’ve taken care of Nanami? Nanami was still only five years old when Gou got into the accident, and she would have most likely ended up with Gou’s mother or brother if she had died. So many things would have changed if Gou passed away that day, if Nanami had been left without her mother.

During Nanami’s early childhood, Gou had help from her family that she knew she would’ve never been able to live without. Miyako had experience raising two children mostly on her own after her husband and the siblings’ father passed away, so her wisdom was always greatly appreciated by Gou. Rin loved babysitting whenever Gou had to work on days he didn’t, so he was always there whenever she needed someone to take care of Nanami when she was still so little.

In all honesty, Gou hadn’t planned on having a child. She and Masayuki hadn’t been the most responsible of young adults, and that’s why Gou ended up getting pregnant. Their entire relationship could be described as an impulse, but Gou had loved every second of it. From the first day they met when he had caught her hat that blew off her head with the wind, until the day of his untimely death. Masayuki left his wife and five year old daughter behind to fend for themselves, and Gou could just barely manage to keep their heads above the surface following the funeral.

Then, less than a year after his death, Gou was about to cause her own. That was when she ended up in the accident and almost made Nanami an orphan. But she survived, and lived life like normal after that, until she met Hironobu at the age of forty-five. At that point, she had long since realised that she wasn’t aging, and she figured she could at least have a few years together with Hironobu until she would have to cut things off before he got suspicious and maybe reported her to the police. Gou wanted to trust him, but she also knew that people couldn’t be easily trusted in a situation she’s sure no one else had been in before.

Hironobu was thirty when they met, and Gou told him that she was twenty-nine. It was true in one sense, since that’s how old she was at the accident that caused her to stop aging, but she was technically a lot older than him. Gladly, it didn’t show, and she hoped that he couldn’t tell based on how she behaved, spoke, and reasoned. Gou, of course, knew that this wouldn’t last forever, but no matter how much she tried to pre-emptively distance herself from Hironobu, her efforts were in vain. She had fallen deeply for this man, and realised that leaving him would be very difficult.

But the fear of him eventually turning on her was what made Gou find the strength to leave Hironobu. She stopped answering the phone, always double-checked before opening the door to the house, and she stopped visiting the parts of town where she knew she could easily run into him. Gou was conflicted, because she felt mean and heartless in doing this, but she kept telling herself that this was for the best, both for herself and for him, in the end.

Gou was able to lie to people for the first few years that maybe she just had great genes and didn’t age that quickly. But that excuse didn’t work for long, obviously, because even if her daughter grew older, Gou never changed. Nanami became a teenager, and they started looking more and more like sisters rather than mother and daughter. Gou tried her hardest not to acknowledge the problem, and it would one day have dire consequences.

As Gou got out of her car one day on her way towards the market, two men wearing sunglasses and suits approached her. They were obviously trying to act friendly, but Gou could see that they weren’t there just for a friendly chat. Her suspicions were soon to be confirmed, as they grabbed her and forced her into a car nearby. She couldn’t escape as they had locked the doors and windows, and for some reason, Gou couldn’t break the windows on the cars. She had never been in a car with windows that were this durable, and amidst everything she couldn’t help what wonder what kind of material it was that wouldn’t break no matter how hard you kicked or hit it.

She would soon be informed that it was a new type of glass that was bulletproof, and that the men she had been approached by were PSIA-agents who had been watching her since the day of her accident years ago that they unfortunately had been witnesses to. The agents told Gou that their plans were to get her on a plane so she could be taken to a hospital where they would run tests on her, to see just how she had been able to stay the same age for several years. What exactly in that accident had caused her to stop aging, is what they wanted to know. Of course, Gou wanted to know this more than anyone, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to be someone’s lab rat to find out.

Gou pretended like she agreed to it, but once they got out of the car, she fought both agents, high on adrenaline, and managed to run away from them, away from the airport they had taken her to, and she successfully hid from them in a nearby wooded area. That was when Gou realised people were after her, and that she couldn’t stay in the same place forever. She had to move, and moving meant leaving everything behind to start over someplace new.

Telling Nanami about her plans was difficult. Gou didn’t want to tear Nanami away from the life she had in Yokohama, but Gou also couldn’t just leave her daughter behind. It was easier to tell Gou’s brother Rin and their mother, because even they had noticed that things weren’t quite right. While it was difficult for them, they had encouraged Gou and Nanami to leave Yokohama and go somewhere else where people didn’t know them. Rin promised Gou they would stay in touch regularly, which made it easier, but still very difficult.

At first, Nanami was upset, as expected, but even she had noticed that something wasn’t right with her mother. Gou _felt_ absolutely fine, better than that, and maybe that was part of the problem. Eventually, though, Nanami would agree to it, and so they left Yokohama behind, changed their names, decided on saying that they were sisters, and Gou and Nanami started life anew in Akita.

Nanami started going to a new high school, made friends. Gou found a job, met people she would eventually go on to call her friends; life seemed like it could be okay again. Slowly but surely, they rebuilt their lives and adjusted to life in a completely new part of the country. It certainly wasn’t what Gou had imagined her life to be, but they made it work, and it was actually okay. As promised, they stayed in regular contact with Miyako and Rin, sending letters and photos attached so that they could see each other in some way. Gou started growing out her hair and stopped curling it. She felt it was time for a change, but also did it just in case they would have to keep moving around, in which case she would make it into a habit of changing her appearance.

But as they feared, while Nanami kept growing, Gou didn’t. Nanami graduated from university, now a grown woman, and it wouldn’t take long now for them to be the same age. Once again, people around them started getting suspicious, so Gou and Nanami had to move to a new place. This time, their new home would be in Tokyo. It would be a little risky being so close to Yokohama again, but Gou felt confident in the fact that Tokyo is so big that they would melt right in without people recognising them in the capital. It was a big jump to move from smaller towns to the big capital of Japan, but Tokyo provided them with more opportunities, and they were able to see Rin and Miyako every now and then thanks to trains being less expensive to take between the cities.

 

* * *

 

 

The hardest part about seeing her mother and brother again was seeing with her own eyes that not only Nanami grew older, but the rest of her family did, too. Rin had met someone, gotten married and now had a child of his own. Miyako retired just before Gou moved to Tokyo, so now she would spend a lot of time babysitting Rin’s son, Akira, when he and his wife were working. Their lives continued normally, and Gou found herself being jealous of her family because they _could_ live normal lives while hers stood still.

Nanami got employed, started working and met new people in her new hometown. Life could only go on for normal for about a decade before suspicion rose again. This time, Gou knew she couldn’t take Nanami with her. Nanami was an adult now, and she was able to make her own decisions without Gou having the right to voice her opinion on the matter. Gou had already dragged her daughter to a few places too many because of her own problems, and now this would stop. Gou was the only one affected by this, the only one that the PSIA had been chasing, and continuing to drag Nanami into it would probably become dangerous.

Gou argued to her daughter that technology was better now than before all of this started, that they could stay in touch by using telephones rather than sending letters. It wouldn’t be cheaper, but it would still be the better option. Every now and then, they could fly out to see each other, as they still do with Rin and Miyako, and they would have to make it work.

Leaving Rin and Miyako had been difficult, but leaving Nanami was the worst and most difficult thing Gou had ever had to do in her life, even though she knew she had to. Gou kept hoping that one day, things would go back to normal somehow, she would start aging again, and she could see her family and be with them once more. The miracle never came, and Gou moved away from her daughter to Toyama where she would, once again, start life anew. For every time she had to do it, it became more difficult even though she got more used to it. It was exhausting more than anything.

Another decade went by. Miyako passed away, and so Gou had to attend a funeral for her mother alongside the rest of her growing family, all of whom had been let in on her secret. Seeing everyone again was hard, and she would keep interactions with everyone brief as a result. Gou felt guilty about leaving her daughter behind, about the fact that time kept passing for her family but not for herself. People around her kept changing, and she had no idea how to let herself in on said change.

One by one, the seasons kept changing. One by one, the years went by without Gou aging a single day. One by one, her family members passed away, either due to old age or health problems. It made Gou sick to her stomach whenever she felt envious of the people around her who would die because they kept growing older. She had been sitting by Rin’s wife’s side, with him, when she drew her last breath. The drop that spilled the cup over was when Nanami passed away, when it had gone a long time since they were able to lie and say they were sisters. In the end, Nanami had forced herself to get used to saying she was Gou’s grandmother, and that was the time Gou realised that she was going to have to bury her own daughter, who would die of age long before her mother.

After Nanami’s funeral, Gou moved away from Toyama, and she vowed to herself that she wouldn’t get close to anyone again, because she has been through too much emotionally that any more of it would break her. All she would do is watch people enter her lives and then just disappear while she doesn’t move an inch from where she has been for eight decades now.

Rin had encouraged Gou to move, despite her hesitance when he had now grown old and probably needed help now more than before. Rin had Akira, he had people on his wife’s side of the family who could be around him should he need them to. But Rin was always stubborn, he didn’t want people to take care of him when he could still take care of himself just fine. He and Gou would still stay in touch over the phone, and every now and then, Gou would come visit. She made sure that she visited as often as she could so that she wouldn’t miss out on too much in her brother’s last years of life.

Eighty years have passed, and Gou is, still, twenty-nine years old, when she should be so much older.


	2. a book full of blank pages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gou moves to a new town, meets new people, starts over again.

“Well, here you go. Took less time than expected.”

Gou takes the passports and other documents from Fujinuma, and she smiles. “Practice makes perfect, I assume.”

“Probably. Can I ask… why you need these? Police troubles?”

The biggest mistake Gou ever made after the accident was to know people for too long. They would start suspecting things, constantly ask her how she manages to look so young, why Nanami seemed to catch up to her age-wise and what Gou’s secret is. She doesn’t know what the secret to eternal youth is besides crashing one’s car and getting struck by lightning, but that probably isn’t the best beauty tips one could give or receive.

Gou smiles. “Thank you for all of this. You are most kind. Don’t go getting yourself into trouble because you forge documents for a little extra money.”

“Why?”

“Why, you ask? Well, I would hate to see good potential go wasted. Be careful.”

She turns around to leave the apartment, but not before putting her new identifications into her purse. Either he is too dumbfounded to respond, or he simply chooses not to, but Gou leaves without another word being said between the two, which is always for the best. She has always found her identity forgers through other people, but it strangely enough gets easier with the times. Technology is advancing faster now than ever, and she can have new passports done within a few days of having sent her pictures to her contact person.

Shortly after Nanami passed away, Gou finally did what she should’ve done a lot sooner, and she started looking for more information about her condition. She borrowed books from libraries and would spend hours upon hours looking for something she couldn’t identify herself. All of the research Gou put into it eventually resulted in absolutely nothing. Gou had nothing to explain her condition with, and nothing that could somehow solve this problem of her not being able to die of old age, not being able to even grow a single grey hair on her head. She was briefly tempted to contact a scientist or a doctor to get some answers, but remembered the time that the PSIA wanted to turn her into a scientific experiment.

Ever since then, Gou stopped looking for answers.

The best thing about moving around every few years is that Gou always gets to start over. The worst thing about it is that she _has_ to start over every time. She always has mixed feelings about it, despite being used to it by now. Gou wishes she never had to get used to this in the first place, but she has to make do with what she has. And what she has is too much time on her hands. Time that never runs out, time that she can’t really spend, because time stopped passing a long time ago.

Gou’s new apartment is located in the heart of Iwatobi, a seaside town in Tottori prefecture which, for once, she’s never visited before. The apartment is fairly small, but it’s good enough for her to live in with her cat Yui, and the rent is okay. It comes with a little balcony, a fridge and freezer, and a laundry machine. There really isn’t anything to complain about, and Gou is glad she managed to get such a nice little place for herself. It’s always a shame she can’t properly get settled, because this apartment is one she could easily see herself live in for a long time, and not just a few years.

“Well,” she says as she lets Yui out of her cage, “this seems like a good place to stay in for a while. What do you say, Yui?”

Yui responds with a double meow, which makes Gou smile. She spends the rest of her afternoon unpacking the essentials, at least getting her bathroom in order and most of the kitchen. Her bed arrives tomorrow, so for tonight, she has to sleep on her couch, but Gou doesn’t mind it. In two days, she starts her new job at the local bookshop, so tomorrow, Gou has all day to go shopping for groceries and other things she needs in the apartment. It’s also a good opportunity for her to get to know central Iwatobi a little before she starts working and _living_ there.

Iwatobi is a very calm, dormant town that doesn’t have as many shops and entertainment venues as many other places Gou has lived in. Each time she has to move, she has to get used to either her new home not having everything, or the opposite where there’s just too much going on at once. This is why she disliked living in Tokyo, and why she knows she’ll really like living in Iwatobi. Wherever she goes, she can smell the sea, even if she doesn’t always hear it. Vendors on the streets sell the town’s locally caught fish and seafood to very reasonable prices, and Gou ends up buying a lot of fish and shrimp that she knows she’ll have to put in the freezer soon.

She ends up having to make a few trips back and forth to the apartment, but it also helps her to find her way a lot quicker. At the end of the day, Gou has just about filled her fridge and freezer as well as her cupboards with groceries, spices and other necessities. She unpacks the last of her boxes, flattens them and takes them down into the storage, and then she just has to wait for her bed to arrive so that the last piece completes the puzzle.

Yui is the sixth cat Gou has had throughout the years. Ever since she was left alone, save for Rin, Akira and his side of the family, Gou has had a pet companion so she wouldn’t have to think about just how lonely she is. She chose this state of affairs as a way to save her heart from any more suffering than she already has to endure, and it has worked out so far. She makes friends wherever she moves, but none of them get to know the real her, and that’s the way she prefers it. How would she ever explain to someone the peculiar nature of her seemingly eternal youth?

Gou starts work the following Monday. She’s guided around by a very eccentric man who has pink hair, a ridiculous name, and the most contagious laugh Gou has ever heard. He’s worked at the bookshop for years, and he doesn’t seem tired of it even in the slightest. Kisumi is a person Gou can tell is quick to make friends, and she finds herself very easily getting along with him. So far, her experiences in Iwatobi have been nothing but positive.

“I think I’m the only one who thinks it’s fun to organise the shelves,” Kisumi says. “Aki and Chigusa always leave it up to me, and I don’t ever mind it. It’s peaceful.”

Gou hums. “I can understand that. I think I would enjoy doing that, too. Having things in a particular order, organised, not in a chaotic mess.”

“Right? Some people find it charming when things are messy. I don’t. I just can’t stop thinking about how desperately I want to clean it up.”

“Yeah,” Gou laughs. “I think I’ll love it here.”

Kisumi smiles. “I hope so! We’re glad to have you here. It’s nice with some new faces around every now and then.”

Later that day, Gou is introduced to Chigusa and Aki who work alongside Kisumi in the shop. For a small town like Iwatobi, the bookshop is fairly sizeable and has a great variety of books and authors. It’s more like a library than a shop, but that’s part of why Gou found it so interesting when she applied for the job. She wants to work in a peaceful environment completely lacking of stress and higher volumes. The silence in a bookshop or library can’t be beaten, and that’s why Gou just knows she’ll love working there.

Gou’s three new co-workers hang out often, and they know each other well. While they can’t have lunch together during the day, they do have dinner together often after work. It’s a good, healthy balance between being simply colleagues and also friends. Some things belong only at work, some things are the opposite. Sometimes it seeps through, but it seems that isn’t too big of an issue for Chigusa, Aki, and Kisumi.

The first week is a good warmup for Gou, and she quickly learns how things work, where things are, and what kind of people visit the shop. Many are regulars, and they come in whenever they have some spare time to just sit around, socialise, and read books. A long time ago, people used to be all about books. As time went on, Gou was saddened to find out that technology stole people’s attention from books, but thankfully books are becoming popular again, despite the continued advancement in technology.

“Shiori, a little help?”

Gou looks up from the register and the receipts, seeing Kisumi on a ladder by one of the shelves. She gets a feeling of vertigo just by looking at him up there, yet he doesn’t seem bothered by it at all. Of course he wouldn’t, if he’s worked here for so long. Gou is still struggling with the ladders and having to get up high to stack the shelves, but she hopes she’ll get over at least most of her fear of heights in due time.

“Need to move these elsewhere,” Kisumi says, and he pulls out a whole pile of books. “Catch.”

Gou heads over to take the books from him, and they land heavily in her arms, but she has a steady grip on them. “Where do they go?”

“Luckily for you, a lot lower on the other side of this shelf. I don’t know _why_ they were up here, but they’re all by Wada, so they have no business being up here by Kouchi.”

“Maybe they just wanted to hang out for a while.”

Kisumi snort-laughs. “Or someone forced them to.”

Gou puts the books down on the floor right by the section of the shelf they need to be in, and then she puts them back. She loves how neat and organised this shop is, and it’s clear someone—Kisumi, definitely—really cares for their workplace.

“I don’t think I’ve ever visited a bookshop quite this neat,” she says, mostly to herself, but Kisumi catches what she says, anyway.

“A friend of mine likes to hang out here a lot for that specific reason. I think you’d get along well with him.”

“You should introduce me to him, then,” Gou replies, and she hears a teasing ‘hmm’ from Kisumi by her side.

“Looking for someone new?”

_He said he just wanted to talk, but Gou has a feeling there’s a lot more to it than just a talk. She doesn’t really want to go, but she would feel bad if she just left Hironobu to wait for her in the park alone, not knowing she didn’t plan on coming in the first place. They haven’t seen each other in person in a few weeks, but that was all on her. Hironobu had come over several times, worried about her, but Gou just told him she didn’t feel well, and that he shouldn’t be there. There was some truth to those words, but she also left out a lot of the reason why she didn’t want to see him, so she might as well have lied about the entire thing._

_It’s probably best if she goes to see him one last time now, before Nanami becomes old enough that Hironobu will know that something doesn't add up, especially since Gou told him that she was twenty-nine several years ago, and she definitely shouldn't look like she's twenty-nine for several years. They have to move as soon as possible, and Hironobu wanting to meet up certainly doesn't make it easier for Gou. Hell, he even makes it more difficult for himself. Best case scenario, he would have been a man who wouldn't be affected much by a woman who suddenly stops contacting him. Gou has met plenty of those kinds of men before, why can't Hironobu be like them? Why does he have to care this much? Why does she have to care so much that just going to see him is one of the hardest things she's ever done?_

_When Gou gets close to the park, the taxi starts slowing down. On an off-white park bench, Gou spots Hironobu sitting by himself with his hands clasped together. Or are they? No, as they get closer, Gou sees that he has something in his hands. It’s a little square box, and never before has the sight of something so simple scared Gou as much as this does. He_ _looks nervous;fidgeting with the box, looking to the sides every now and then to see if Gou is coming. Marriage has never been on her mind, and especially not now. Has he figured out her secret? How? Has Miyako told him, and if so, why would he want to propose? What could his reason be for this?_

_“Miss?” the taxi driver says. “Is this not your stop?”_

_Gou looks out the window, takes a deep breath, and briefly closes her eyes. A stubborn tear rolls down her cheek, and she is quick to wipe it away. “No,” she says. “Keep driving, please.”_

_The driver does not say anything else; instead, he keeps driving until they get to the end of the park, where they drive around, and leave the area. Gou looks in the rear-view mirror at the park disappearing behind them, and she bites the inside of her cheek. He will never forgive her for this, but it is for the better. She has no plans on seeing him again, because they are better off this way._

“… Shiori?”

Gou blinks a few times to stop a tear from falling like it had back then, and she turns her attention back to Kisumi. “No. No, I’m not looking for someone new.”

Kisumi’s look softens, and for a second, Gou fears he might have seen right through her. “Neither is he. Haru doesn’t date.”

 

* * *

 

Gou had never expected to meet this Haru person at a party, of all things, but here they are. He’s a man of few words, but he has a sense of humour that Gou really likes. Haru, or Haruka, and Kisumi are like polar opposites, which is why it’s so interesting for Gou to be with them both at the same time. It’s fascinating how they are such good friends despite their contrasting personalities, and it makes Gou believe that anyone can find someone to be friends with, even people who have little to nothing in common.

The party is a fundraiser sponsored by the company of Kisumi’s friend’s father, but it’s a lot more casual of a party than what Gou had expected it to be. Gatherings like these have certainly changed since the early twentieth century, when parties were formal and everyone wore the most expensive clothes they had in their wardrobes. Come 2017, the people around her at this party are still wearing somewhat formal clothing, but it is a lot less fancy than things used to be. And Gou is very much glad for this change in festive fashion.

Amongst all of the guests, Gou gets to know more of Kisumi’s friends, not to mention his husband. Makoto works as a teacher at an elementary school in town, and he’s known most of them since they were very young. Gou is initially surprised when Kisumi introduces Makoto as his husband, but she is also glad to know that society is moving in the right direction. It wasn’t that long ago that it was completely unthinkable for same-sex couples to get married, yet things have finally started to change, as is evidenced by Makoto and Kisumi.

“Makoto is actually the one who introduced me to Haru,” Kisumi says. “They’ve known each other since they were babies, practically.”

“Not exactly babies, but fair enough.”

Kisumi waves his hand dismissively in Haruka’s direction. “Details!”

“How long have you all lived here in Iwatobi?” Gou asks the group, in which she has become the only woman after Chigusa and Aki headed off to talk to some of the other party guests.

“Practically our entire lives?” Makoto replies, laughing. “Haru and I went to school here. I actually wanted to teach at the school I went to, but fate had other plans in store for me. Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

“I moved here five years ago, shortly before I met Makoto, and the others by association. It might be the best decision I’ve ever made.”

A man who’s introduced himself as Sousuke snorts. “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve said all evening, and you say dumb things a lot.”

“I love you too, Sousuke.”

“You’re _married_! Anyway,” Sousuke says. “I lived here when I was a kid, but moved after high school to make mistakes. Moved back here three years ago because everyone I know _still_ lives here. Gotta go where the party’s at, right?”

Gou raises her glass, curious by the story behind his choice of the word ‘mistakes’. “I’ll drink to that.”

Sousuke laughs, meets her gaze and raises his glass. “Me too.”

The others raise their glasses as well, and they share a toast. It’s a nice little group of friends that Gou is glad that Kisumi introduced her to. They’re all so vastly different in their personalities, yet they seem to be the best of friends. Many years will probably do that, and Gou is once again jealous that she can’t have things like that in her life. A decade might seem like a long time, but Gou feels like this coming decade will go by a lot faster than others have so far.

“Where’d you move from, Shiori?”

Gou turns her attention to Makoto from whom the question came. “Oh, I’ve lived here and there. Most recently I lived in Nagoya, but I’ve lived in Tokyo, Yokohama, and Akita as well.”

“Oh, that’s interesting! I wish I had the energy to move around; it would be nice to see new places.”

“Are you saying we should leave Iwatobi?” Kisumi asks, and he gives his husband a pretend-hurt puppy eye look, which makes Makoto laugh.

Eventually, Aki and Chigusa return, and the group feels a little bit more complete at that point. Gou went from being an outsider to a part of the gang in the span of a few weeks, and just tonight, she’s met and befriended more people than she has since she moved here. One of the most exciting parts about moving to new places is that she gets to know all kinds of people, gets to see how social events and norms differ depending on the era or the part of the country she’s in.

Of course, one of the worst parts about it is having to leave behind something she has built up for so long, only to have to start anew in another place.

After a few hours of talking, laughing and socialising, Gou sneaks away from her group to find someplace she can recharge her batteries for a little bit. She takes the time to look around the venue, admire the interior design, but she doesn’t stick around as she’s still looking for somewhere she can be in solitude for a while. The search doesn’t last long, luckily, as Gou finds the door out to a balcony near the back of the place.

The balcony provides a beautiful view over the ocean. Gou really enjoys the silence that falls when she pulls the door shut behind her. A cool breeze rustles her hair a little, but it feels nice in the summer air that still lingers from the day. The deep blue dress she wears almost disappears in the darkness that slowly settles upon Iwatobi; it’s a dress that she bought twenty years ago but hasn’t worn many times since. She doesn’t have many nice dresses, but she doesn’t wear formal clothing that often, anyway. If she wears a dress she does it during summer when wearing anything else doesn’t make sense.

Gou thinks about Nanami, and a lump forms in her throat. Nanami was never supposed to die before her own mother, especially not of old age, but fate had somehow decided on being extra cruel to Gou and the ones she loves. Nanami had to put up with a lot of things because of Gou, and Gou will never be free of guilt over that fact.

The door slides open behind her, and Gou turns her head to see who has come out to join her.

“Hey,” Sousuke says. “Was wondering where you headed off to.”

“You thought I’d left?” Gou asks, smiling as she looks out over the ocean again.

“I wouldn’t blame you. I’m not a fan of these shindigs, myself. That’s… kind of why I’m out here.”

Gou shrugs. “I don’t mind them. It’s nice to meet new people every now and then.”

“Hm.”

“Why don’t you like these ‘shindigs’, if I may ask?”

“Dunno, I guess I’m not the most sociable person. I think people find me scary.”

Gou laughs at that. “I don’t find you scary.”

“You don’t?” Sousuke chuckles quietly. “I don’t like these kinds of events because there are too many people and so many names you have to learn. I’m only here because alcohol and food is free… and because Kisumi forced me to come.”

“Forced? I wouldn’t take him for such a person.”

Sousuke lets out a dry, short laugh. “Believe me, looks are definitely deceiving in his case.”

Silence falls again. Gou exhales slowly, lets her shoulders relax. She’s glad that Sousuke was the one who came out here, because she’s understood that he isn’t one who wants to desperately fill moments of silence with pointless banter. People are different, and it isn’t as if Gou dislikes social gatherings, but sometimes she just needs some time away from them to get some breathing room.

“I should probably go back inside for a little bit, but then I’m heading out.”

Sousuke turns to face Gou. “Oh. Yeah, sure. Do you want company?”

Gou raises her eyebrows at the unexpected question, but she shakes her head. “Thanks for asking. I think I just really want to go home and sleep.”

Sousuke laughs a little. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Gou heads back inside before Sousuke, and goes to find her newfound friends. She spends a little time talking to them, but then she bids them goodnight, and makes her way out to the lift that will take her back downstairs to the ground floor’s exit. It’s been a very pleasant evening, and Gou is definitely glad she went, but now all she wants is to go back home to Yui, to her apartment, and get some sleep.

Just as the doors are about to close, a hand stretches in to stop them, and Gou jumps at the sudden loud noise that is the result of said action. The doors open, and Sousuke hurriedly makes his way inside the lift, giving Gou a look of acknowledgement before briefly wincing in pain and rubbing his now injured hand with the other.

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

“About what?” she asks, unable to hide the amusement in her voice.

“About stopping the lift. Sticking my hand in a place where it definitely doesn’t belong.”

Gou smiles. “Let’s just hope we get all the way down, that way we’ll know whether you should be sorry or not.”

“That’s fair.”

“Did you have a change of heart?”

Sousuke looks at her again, confused. “Huh?”

“I thought you were staying.”

“Unfortunately, I am. I just wanted to spend twenty-five floors in a lift with you.”

Gou bites the inside of her cheek as to not laugh. It was pretty cute, though, she has to admit. “That’s very sweet of you.”

The lift comes to a stop at the bottom floor, and they both get out. Outside, a man by the entrance asks Gou if she wants a taxi, to which she says that she does. Rain has started falling, so Gou stays under the roof of the building while she waits for her taxi with a man she met just tonight.

“Are you planning on following me so you can find out where I live?”

“It’ll be easier to know where I should send flowers.”

Gou glances at Sousuke by her side. “Flowers?”

A taxi drives up and stops right in front of Gou. She turns to face Sousuke properly, and she offers him a smile.

“Good night, Sousuke. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

She gets into the taxi, and just as they’re about to drive away, Sousuke sticks his hand inside the window to stop the car.

“Shiori, wait—”

“There you go again, sticking your hand in places where it doesn’t belong,” Gou chastises him jokingly. “Soon I will have to ask you to turn around while the taxi drives away so that you won’t know where I am going.”

Sousuke laughs, but only briefly. “Let me take you out to dinner.”

Gou knew already on the balcony that this wasn’t just a regular meeting between two strangers. They may have friends in common now, but that wasn’t what ended up with them on the balcony for a while just keeping each other company.

“I can’t,” she says. “You should go back.”

She then urges the driver to start the engine again, and this time when the taxi drives away, Sousuke doesn’t stop them.


	3. a risky move

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It _has_ been decades, so maybe it's about time Gou got back into it.

The sight that greets Gou when she come down from a ladder—a little shaky in the legs, but she’s improving—is Sousuke talking to Aki by the bookshop’s entrance. Gou smiles, but she rolls her eyes to herself as she turns around again to hide from them, immersing herself in arranging the new arrivals on the shelves. Gou isn’t one to assume everything is about her, but this is too obvious for her to be wrong. If only they had been complete strangers, this might not have happened. But of course, she had to be introduced to him through Kisumi, and that’s obviously why Sousuke is here. He doesn’t have to know where she lives, all he has to do is ask his friends where she works, and he’ll know.

“… whenever he comes back. Hey, Shiori.”

Gou turns around, pretending to be surprised when she sees Sousuke lift his hand in a lazy greeting. In the other hand, he has a bouquet of flowers. “You found out where I work.”

“That wasn’t difficult. Actually, I could’ve known that before the party, but I’m rarely ever here, so.”

“It’s a shame,” Gou says. “There are plenty good books here you might enjoy.”

“Now you’re just trying to sell me books.”

Gou raises an eyebrow and gives him a look. “Well, I _am_ working.”

“Touché.” He stretches the bouquet of flowers out to her a little unceremoniously. “These are for you, as I promised.”

A little hesitant, Gou takes the flowers from Sousuke and inspects them. “These are beautiful. Thank you.”

Sousuke grins. “I did tell you I wanted to bring you flowers. I’m only glad you like them.”

Gou turns around and carefully puts the flowers on one of the shelves as she continues putting books in their new places. She makes a mental note to take care of the flowers once Sousuke has left the shop.

“Are you waiting for someone?”

“Kisumi, actually. But that was only half the reason why I came.”

“I bet I can guess the other half.”

“If you guess right, I get to take you out to dinner. Deal?”

Gou laughs. She hasn’t met anyone this persistent since Hironobu, and the thought makes her hesitate about responding in a positive manner. But at the same time, she can’t help but be a little curious. She can’t deny she finds Sousuke interesting and attractive, so maybe one dinner couldn’t hurt. They are going to be living in the same town for a while, and they do have mutual friends, so it doesn’t have to be a bad idea.

“Where?” she asks, and she doesn’t have to turn around to know he’s smiling.

“Let me surprise you. I can come pick you up.”

“Which means you would have to know where I live,” she says. “You already know where I work.”

“So let me pick you up here, then. Seven tomorrow night?”

Gou turns her head to the side, but only so much that she just about sees Sousuke in the corner of her eye. She knows she’s in way over her head, but she’ll deal with that issue when she gets to it. “Okay,” she says. “Seven it is.”

Sousuke leaves with Kisumi for lunch shortly thereafter, and both Chigusa and Aki are all over Gou trying to find out just what has already transpired between her and Sousuke. She thinks it’s fairly obvious considering the flowers and the way it must have looked when they were talking earlier, but she lets the girls have their fun.

Gou thinks of how Nanami must be looking down at her from where she is now, grinning and saying ‘ _about damn time_ ’. Nanami was always on Gou’s case, saying she didn’t need to run anymore now that everyone who were ever the slightest suspicious are now long dead. Gou still didn’t want to let people in that close because to her, love just means heartbreak, because there’s no possibility for a future shared with someone else. _She_ has a lot of future, but other people don’t.

She hasn’t been on a date in decades, so Gou barely remembers what it’s like. The worst thing about it is that she doesn’t know how people date these days; it’s most certainly a lot different from when she was still dating, and it’s a little scary not knowing how she should dress to not seem too out of place, or what she should expect out of dinner with Sousuke. She figures that it’s at least a good opportunity to get to know him a little better, and that makes her nervousness dissipate a little.

The next day, Gou brings a change of clothes to work. It could have been very much possible for her to work in slightly nicer clothing than she usually does, but it would certainly look odd to the regulars at the shop if they haven’t seen her like that before. It’s nice, though, that they don’t really have a dress code at the bookshop. The only rule is that you don’t go to work in something that looks torn and tattered, like many pieces of clothing Gou has seen teenagers wear these days. She doesn’t understand the trend, and she certainly doesn’t like it, which is why she’s so glad only teenagers are dumb to find it fashionable, and the more grown up people have long since realised that it isn’t.

It turns out to be a very rainy day, but it’s nice. During most of the day, the bookshop is practically empty of customers. Gou and her co-workers end up playing Scrabble in the back while they take turns peeking their heads out in the shop to make sure they aren’t accidentally ignoring a customer. At some point, someone calls for their attention, which makes Chigusa jump up and dart out into the shop to help the poor man, but otherwise, they spend all day hanging out and having fun.

“I have to say,” Aki says. “I’m very impressed by you, Shiori.”

Gou looks up from her tiles. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. You moved here not long ago, and you already have a date.”

“Oh,” Gou replies, and she laughs a little. “Well, life is full of unexpected things.”

“He’s nervous, you know,” Kisumi chips in. “Kept asking me if he should really take you to this restaurant, if he should maybe wear something else… Sousuke isn’t talkative, but he sure was yesterday evening.”

“Not talkative, you say. Well, I certainly had the wrong impression of him, then.”

Kisumi snickers. “Maybe he’s just like that around some people.”

At the end of the day, Gou gets changed in the restroom, and takes a few minutes to do a little make-up; a faint blush on the cheeks, red lipstick almost matching the fiery red of her hair, and a little mascara to accentuate her eyes a little. She rarely uses make-up, but tonight is one such occasion where she assumes that maybe she should. Gou still doesn’t know where Sousuke is taking her tonight, but she assumes, based on his rumoured nervousness, that it won’t be a fast-food restaurant.

The bookshop closes at six, but Gou and the others stay at the shop past closing time, hanging out until Gou’s date for the night arrives.

“You really don’t have to stay,” Gou says. “I can close up.”

“Are you kidding? I want to see you off,” Chigusa says, which makes Aki laugh.

“Don’t tell me you’re nervous, Shiori?”

Gou shrugs, because it’s actually true that she doesn’t know. She _was_ nervous earlier, but now she doesn’t really feel that way, nor does she know exactly how to describe her current state of mind. She’s mostly just wondering how people date these days, what signifies a date. One thing she knows is that people definitely don’t go to drive-in theatres anymore, because she hasn’t seen one in ages. She remembers the one time Hironobu had taken her to one, and how magical of an experience it had been, even though she had just been watching a film on a giant screen from the back of a car.

“Not necessarily, no. I guess I’m curious?”

Kisumi laughs. “Oh, then you won’t be disappointed, I promise.”

Right on time, even a few minutes before, Sousuke knocks on the window to the shop. Gou gathers her things and bids her friends good night, and then she heads out to greet Sousuke. Maybe she’s a little nervous again, but she tries to blame it on the fact that she’s inexperienced with these things. She thinks it’s a valid excuse, but she can’t really say that to anyone else.

Sousuke is certainly dressed for what Gou would consider a proper date; he’s wearing a light blue dress shirt with the top two buttons unbuttoned, black chinos, and black shoes to match. She sees the tiniest hint of a smile tug at the corners of his lips when he greets her, and it makes him if possible even more handsome.

“Hey, Shiori,” he says. “You look beautiful.”

She smiles. “Thank you, Sousuke.”

“Let’s head out, I’ve gotta admit I’m starving.”

“You and me both,” Gou says. “Lead the way.”

Sousuke’s car is very modest; Gou guesses he’s had it for quite some time, and probably inherited it from someone in the family or a friend. It’s very nice, though, but she knows it’s an older model. Maybe he just prefers older cars rather than having the newest, fanciest ones.

After a shorter ride, Sousuke parks the car near a European restaurant which is on the other side of Iwatobi from where Gou lives. Sousuke walks up to the host and verifies his booking, and then the two of them are shown to their table, which is right by a window. The lighting in the restaurant is dim, and the décor is minimalistic, making it for a very cosy and not at all distracting environment. Coming to a restaurant like this makes Gou curious to see what else Iwatobi’s restaurants have to offer; she’s only just gotten started living here, and she’s looking forward to discovering more about the town.

Most everything on the menu is more expensive than what Gou would have expected for a date like this. Maybe Sousuke just has a lot of money? Gou realises she doesn’t know what he does for a living, and thus has no idea what he earns in a month. It isn’t as if she’s necessarily been blatantly staring at him, but she’s noticed that Sousuke is more muscular than the average man, so she figures he probably uses his physical strength at work a lot. Or he just likes to work out at the gym.

“Find anything?” Sousuke asks.

“I’m interested in trying the salmon, actually. What about you?”

“Pasta,” he replies. “With clams.”

“Oh, you like those? I’ve never been one for clams.”

He laughs. “Understandable. I’ve lived here for a while now, so I’ve gotten used to all of the seafood. You kind of _have_ to, really.”

“Good to know; I can prepare myself for that.”

“Picky eater?”

Gou hums. “Not exactly, but it’s more of a texture thing. You know… clams.”

“Ha, yeah.”

A waitress comes to take their order, and while Gou wants to have a glass of wine with her food, Sousuke is responsible and orders water for himself, as he has to drive after dinner. Iwatobi seems like the kind of town where people don’t tend to drink and drive; it’s a very peaceful town that could almost be considered boring. But boring is what Gou needs, at least for now.

“So what do you think of Iwatobi so far?” Sousuke asks.

Gou tastes her wine before responding. It’s a Spanish wine she’s had a few times before, which she was glad to find on the menu. “I really like it here. It’s very different from where I’ve lived before.”

“Mmm, I get that; I feel the same way. It’s a nice change if you’ve lived in bigger cities.”

“It really is.” She puts her glass down, and decides to change the subject. “So what do you do for a living, Sousuke? I don’t believe I caught that at the party.”

“Carpenter,” Sousuke replies. “I mostly work for companies, though—not homes and such. But it happens.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“I do, yeah. I’m just glad I’m able to work physically again.”

Gou raises an eyebrow. “Again? What happened?”

Sousuke sighs, though he doesn’t appear to be uncomfortable talking about it. “Tore a muscle in my shoulder when I was in high school—I used to be a swimmer as a kid. I couldn’t use my shoulder much for a long time, but after years of rehab and training, I was allowed to actually _do_ things.”

“I’m sorry,” Gou replies. “That must have been tough.”

“Yeah, it was. But I guess it was a learning experience of sorts. I was really fucking reckless back then; I never stopped and I just kept pushing myself past my limit.”

Their food arrives in the middle of their conversation, but thankfully, they’re able to pick it right back up once they start eating. Gou is really glad she chose the salmon, as it is probably the best salmon she’s had in years. It might be simple as that, or she might think that way because she hasn’t had much to eat all day. Either way, Gou is glad Sousuke introduced her to this place, because she would gladly go back… probably right after receiving her salary, and then eating nothing but instant noodles for the rest of the month.

Gou learns a lot about Sousuke that evening. Aside from having been on the swim team all the way up to the end of high school, he has a big interest in cooking and food in general. His father owned a restaurant in town until he retired, and apparently it was half-determined that Sousuke were to take over the restaurant, but Sousuke doesn’t think he’s quite there yet in terms of jumping into the restaurant business. His family seems to be more traditional than what families appear to be these days, which is why Gou kind of recognises herself in his stories sometimes.

At the end of the date, Sousuke pays for the entire thing, and then he offers to take Gou home. She’s ultimately glad she went, because she’s had a good time, and the food was great. Now that Gou has gotten to know Sousuke better, she doesn’t understand Kisumi and the others when they say Sousuke isn’t sociable or talkative, because he’s been nothing _but_ that all evening. Her first impression of him had been so wrong that it’s laughable to her now. She’s almost impressed by how different he is now to when they first met not that long ago.

“Well, now I guess you know where I live,” Gou says as the car stops outside her apartment. Sousuke snorts.

“What do you have against me knowing where you live? Do you think I’m going to come here and stalk you or something?”

Gou looks out the window up at the apartment building. She holds back a sigh. “It’s complicated. I might… never mind. Thank you for tonight, Sousuke. I really enjoyed it.”

“Me too,” he says. He looks as if he’s about to say something else, but then he hesitates, and slowly starts leaning forward. Gou registers it just a little bit too slowly, and he’s very close when she pulls away.

“I should go.”

Sousuke looks at her for a second, but then turns to face the wheel. “Okay. Good night, Shiori.”

“Good night, Sousuke.”

Gou closes the passenger door, and walks inside her apartment building. It’s been a long day, and now that she’s so close to being home, fatigue is settling in as if someone’s putting a heavy blanket on her shoulders. She pets and feeds Yui, washes her face and brushes her teeth before she completely crashes in bed.

 

* * *

 

It’s unexpected but a nice surprise when Makoto contacts Gou, asking if she wants to go out and have coffee with him and Haruka one Sunday afternoon. She hasn’t hung out with them much, so this is a good opportunity to get to know them, too. It’s another dreary day, so it’s perfect for sitting inside a café looking out the window.

Gou orders a cappuccino, Makoto gets a salted caramel latte that looks so sweet Gou suspects it would rot her teeth, and Haruka appears to be a simply black coffee person. She isn’t quite there yet, but she hopes she’ll get there as it would probably be better for her. Makoto, on the other hand, says he’s lightyears from becoming someone who loves black coffee. It wasn’t until a year ago or so that Makoto was able to stand the taste of coffee, but then again, he does drench it in sugar and other sweet things, anyway.

“How has your week been, Shiori?”

“Oh, just fine,” she responds. “It hasn’t been all that exciting, to be honest. Next week is definitely going to be better, as we have a book launch and a separate book signing planned at the shop.”

Makoto smiles. “That’s exciting indeed. I have to drop by sometime soon, to get some tips on what to gently force my students to read.”

Haruka snort-laughs at that. “’Gently force’ is a great way to describe Makoto. Doing everything with a threat thinly veiled by a smile.”

“Hey, that’s mean!”

“But it’s true, and don’t you deny it.”

Gou shakes her head and smiles at their banter. It’s very obvious they’ve been friends for as long as they have, because they seem very comfortable around one another and can joke about anything without the other actually getting offended. Jokingly, sure, but not truthfully.

“You are very welcome to visit,” Gou says. “I think I know a few books I could recommend to you.”

“That would be great! It’s nice that there’s still a bunch of us who appreciate books when they seem to be a dying format of acquiring information.”

Too often has Gou felt like the black sheep when she’s been reading books on public transport or at coffee shops, when other people bury their phones in phones or computers instead. Even though she’s lived for over a hundred years, she’s tried her best to adapt to society as it kept changing, but some things would just never change. She herself is okay with it as long as she doesn’t stand out too much and attracts unnecessary and unwanted attention. It may sound like a trivial thing to others, but Gou has been careless in the past, and she still doesn’t dare to think about what that could have led to.

As the next week begins, the bookshop does get a lot busier than the week prior. The author of a new mystery book has her book launch party at the shop, which is definitely an experience Gou hasn’t had before. Ironically, this launch party is more formal than the fundraiser she had went to where she met most of her new friends. Gou doesn’t mind the formality of the event, though; it’s very nice, and it has attracted a surprisingly large crowd for a town as small as Iwatobi. Hopefully this and the book signing will help to generate more sales at the shop, too. It isn’t as if they are struggling by any means, but more is almost always better in these situations.

The book signing is a lot more casual than the book launch, and less crowded. A man who published a young adult-book a few months ago is the one signing copies, and there’s a fair amount of teenage girls lining up to get his autograph in their books.

“It’s always interesting to see authors in the flesh,” Aki says. She’s leaning against a doorpost, arms crossed over her chest, not-so-subtly looking at the author in question who’s busy talking to the girls in line up to him. “They never look the way you expect them to.”

Kisumi laughs. “Oh, I _really_ want to know what you thought he’d look like.”

“Like a hikikomori. You know the type: they’ve never seen the sun, they hunch over whether they sit or stand, they haven’t gotten a haircut in ages, not to mention a shower.”

“That’s what you thought of this guy?” Chigusa asks. “Wow, my guess was way different from yours.”

“Like I said, this is interesting. Because obviously we all have different impressions and guesses.”

Gou doesn’t mention that she hasn’t heard of this man before, because that wouldn’t be of use in this conversation. She bites the inside of her cheek as to not laugh, though, because what Aki says makes sense in more cases than just this particular one.

At the end of the session, Chigusa wraps it all up and thanks the author for coming all the way to their shop. He says he had a good time and that he would gladly be back, which makes Aki lose her stoic expression and subconsciously replace it with a mildly disgusted one. Gou lightly slaps her on the arm, and Aki clears her throat, looking to the side.

“What?” she hisses. “Would _you_ want him back here?”

“No comment.”

Aki snorts and rolls her eyes. “Thought so.”

“We can vent our unprofessional opinions when he’s left, that’s what I’m trying to indicate here.”

“Oh. Yeah… of course.”

At the end of the day as Gou comes home, she’s so glad to see Yui, who appears to return those feelings. Gou feeds Yui, makes dinner for herself, and eats it while watching TV in the living room. A film she used to love as a teenager is on, which is very rare, but it makes Gou happy and nostalgic. It was a film that she loved and Masayuki absolutely detested, but he always let her watch it whenever it was on TV regardless, grinning and bearing it until it was over.

After the whirlwind that lasted two days, Gou is relieved to know that today is a lot less hectic at the bookshop. It’s almost as if the book signing and launch party didn’t happen, because all of the people who flooded the shop are nowhere to be seen. Maybe there are a little more people around than usual, but it’s still very calm and quiet around them, as it should be. Gou and Chigusa spend quite some time putting old books into boxes, as well as putting new ones up on the shelves. The good thing about the shop is that, once some of their books have become so unpopular that they don’t sell anymore, they give the books away to schools and libraries who get better use out of them. Which is why there’s a box slowly being filled with old books.

Kisumi has once again taken on the task of arranging the shelves. After bigger events like the ones that happened back-to-back for two days, the shelves are in a complete disarray. Apparently, many people don’t really care where they take the books from, so they just put them on _a_ shelf, not the _right_ shelf. Gou thinks humorously to herself that they give Kisumi a job to busy himself with, instead of him looking for things to do. Aki helps him for a lot of it, and for once, Kisumi doesn’t mind the helping hand.

As it’s just about lunch time, the bell at the door chimes to let them know someone has entered the shop. Gou looks up from the newspaper she’s reading, and her heart drops when she sees Sousuke approaching the counter. Their eyes meet, and Sousuke nods to acknowledge her.

“Hi,” he says. “Kisumi around?”

Gou cocks her head to the back room behind her. “He’s in the back. I imagine he’ll be—”

“Right here,” comes the sing-song-y voice of Kisumi from behind Gou. He comes out into the shop, and Gou barely stifles a laughter at his very timely appearance.

“Good, I’ll be back soon so we can have lunch.”

“What?” Kisumi whines. “But I’m hungry _now_. I thought that’s why you called me out here.”

Sousuke completely ignores Kisumi’s complaining. “I did that so I don’t have to wait for your slow ass when I get back. Shiori, can I have a moment?”

She looks up again, surprised by Sousuke calling out to her. “Uh, yes. Of course.”

Sousuke walks outside without saying much else, and Gou follows, hesitantly. After how their date went, Gou is surprised that Sousuke still wants to talk to her. She wonders what he could possibly want to talk about that they can’t talk about in front of the others in the shop, but it doesn’t matter because she’ll find out momentarily. Has he talked to Kisumi about any of this? Would Kisumi let Gou know if that was the case?

He stops behind the bookshop, close to the park. There are families with children out playing and making noise in the park, which is very helpful because the last thing Gou wants is for them to be surrounded by an uncomfortable silence to make things worse.

“I’m gonna get right to it,” he says. “Would it be too forward of me to ask you to have dinner with me again?”

Gou’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, hiding under her fringe. “I… don’t think it’s too forward, no.”

Well, maybe a little, but that’s probably only because it’s Gou. Had it been literally anyone else, that would have probably been completely normal. Once again, she admires his persistence, but she also doesn’t understand it. It wasn’t that long ago that they met for the first time, and it feels like they’ve seen each other a lot since then. Gou would, however, be an idiot if she didn’t admit to the fact that there was a weird, special connection made between them during the night of the party. There certainly was, and Sousuke most definitely felt it, too.

“So, would you?”

“Yes,” she says. “I would be glad to.”

Maybe she can get a chance to salvage things, make the outcome a little better. She has a decade to live in Iwatobi—unless there’s finally a miraculous change in things—and there’s no telling how long this thing with Sousuke will go on, but definitely not for longer than that. So, she cautiously assumes that maybe there’s no harm in it. Maybe she can start dating again.

Sousuke smiles. “Great. Lend me your phone; I’ll give you my address.”

“To where you live?”

“Yes? Or don’t you want to?”

It’s unexpected, but Gou is still intrigued, and glad for a bit of a change. “Oh, no I wouldn’t mind. That would be great.”

She does as she’s told, and Sousuke types in his address into a new note on her phone. What’s a little surprising is that he has yet to ask for her number, but she figures that he’ll either get it from Kisumi if he wants or needs it, or he’ll ask her himself. Maybe he’s hesitating considering their last date, who knows?

“Good,” Sousuke says, and he laughs a little. “How about Friday at seven?”

“Friday at seven sounds perfect.”

“Then it’s a deal. Maybe we should, uh, head back. I still have to get lunch with Kis, and your co-workers might be worrying about you.”

Gou smiles, shrugging. “It’s probably fine. But you’re right, we should go back inside.”

Some teasing looks are thrown their way as they re-enter the bookshop, but Gou ignores them. Sousuke and Kisumi don’t stick around for much longer, and then only the three women are left in the shop, which now has a few more visitors inside than before Gou and Sousuke left. Kisumi and Aki finished sorting the books on the shelves, so Aki is back behind the register, talking to a customer.

Gou takes a walk around the shop to see if anyone needs help or advice. A teenage boy has made himself comfortable in an armchair by one of the windows with a book, deeply immersed with its contents. It’s a book on war history, so she assumes it’s for school. They don’t mind that people use this bookshop as a library, mostly because they still sell enough to be able to let people just come and go without buying. The few libraries around Iwatobi aren’t located close to the downtown area like their shop is, so that might also be a contributing factor.

After a quick lunch in the back with Chigusa, Gou gets back to work just in time for Kisumi to come back and join them. Not long until closing, Makoto shows up at the shop, so he and Gou start discussing books for his students as they’d previously been talking about. He teaches high school kids, so the tricky part is to find books that are interesting to kids who don’t want to read unless it’s a comic book with pictures.

Gou had a few books in mind before Makoto showed up, but she had done a little research online to find more for Makoto to choose from that they sell at the shop—mostly for convenience’s sake, but also to help their sales. If she works at a bookshop, she should be allowed to advertise their selection, she assumes.

“I’m sure they’ll find something out of these titles that’s interesting enough,” Makoto says as he looks down at the list they’ve compiled. “Thank you so much, Shiori, this is way more than I could’ve hoped for.”

“Always glad to help,” she replies. “Books are important, and I’m always glad to keep the interest in reading them alive.”

Makoto laughs. “So am I. Well, that might be obvious, or I would’ve had a different profession.”

He promises to return once he has a definitive list of books that his students have chosen, and then Makoto says goodbye to his friends before he and Kisumi leave together. The responsibility of closing falls on Gou today, so she’s naturally the last one in the shop at the end of the shift. Even though it may look boring to outsiders, Gou can’t say she’s ever had as interesting of a job as this one before.


	4. memento mori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gou visits Sousuke's apartment for their second date, and she is cruelly reminded of how mortality affects everyone else but her.

Friday comes so soon that Gou feels like she miscalculated the days. This time, she doesn’t bring a change of clothes to work as she won’t be picked up for her date. Besides, she has plenty of time after work to go back home and get changed into something nicer. As for what she’ll wear, she’ll have plenty of time to think about once she’s gotten back home. She can walk home from work, but walking over to where Sousuke lives would take a lot longer, so Gou decides she’ll just take a taxi back and forth.

Taxis are getting more and more expensive in general, though in Iwatobi the fares are still reasonable. It’s probably because Iwatobi is fairly small, and getting around town doesn’t take too long. Since Gou has no plans of getting a car anytime soon, taking the bus and the occasional taxi works just fine around Iwatobi.

Makoto returns that Friday to buy books for his class, using a good chunk of the budget given to him by the school. Finally, his class have decided on a few books they’ll read—as a content with a reward at the end, unfortunately—and it ends up being three different titles. The reward at the end of this so-called reading contest is a class activity like bowling, going to the cinema or laser tag, which Gou has never even heard of before, but she pretends like she knows what it is. Of course, Makoto will have to know that his students have actually _read_ all of the pages they’ll accumulate to reach a certain number for this contest. To find out that they have, he’s going to have them write a book report at the end.

Speaking of students, more of them pop by the shop during the day to get books they probably have to read for homework. Gou hopes that at least one of them buys their books out of genuine interest and not because they have to. She knows it’s probably way too much to ask for. They all have their noses pointed at the ground most of the time, barely aware of their surroundings, but at least none of them are being rude or rowdy. Gou has heard from Kisumi that rowdy kids have dropped by the shop in the past, being so loud and disorderly that security had to be called to the shop.

The way they call for security is both amusing and a little scary to Gou. They have two buttons right next to each other on the underside of the countertop that they press at the same time, and when security calls their phone, they have to greet security with the phrase “One of the bookshelves is slanted”. If they do, security will know there’s a serious situation that can’t be handled by staff, and Gou hopes it never gets to that point when she works there, because she’s unsure of whether she’d be able to keep her calm in such a situation.

At the end of the day, Gou leaves closing to Aki, and she leaves the shop to head back home briefly to get a shower and put on some nicer clothing for tonight. She arrives back at the apartment, surprised and a little concerned that Yui hasn’t finished all of the food Gou left before she headed out for work earlier that morning. Yui is asleep on the couch when Gou comes back, though so Gou doesn’t bother her companion as she isn’t going to be home for long.

Following her shower, Gou blow-dries her hair, gets dressed, and puts on a little make-up. She briefly considers taking a taxi over to where Sousuke lives, but changes her mind just before leaving her apartment and choosing to take one back home instead. Despite the ‘getting-home-from-work’ rush, Gou doesn’t feel like there are too many people out and about, so she really doesn’t regret her choice of taking public transport instead of a taxi.

One thing Gou thinks might be dangerous for her when she’s on the bus is the fact that she can stare out the window and lose herself in either daydreams or the scenery outside for such a long time that she would have long since missed her stop. Iwatobi is beautiful, and with it being a seaside town, she sees the ocean a lot and wonders if she will ever get tired of the view. Gou once knew someone who loved going to the beach until she moved close to the beach—after that, the girl started taking the beach for granted and actually didn’t think it was that great. Gou hopes that never happens to herself.

For the last little bit after Gou has gotten off the bus, she uses the map on her phone to navigate her way. It really isn’t that long of a walk, thankfully, but there are a few confusing turns Gou has to make that she tries to commit to memory. Learning to navigate her way through this maze would require her to come back, however, and it is still way too early for her to say if she will.

Finally, Gou arrives outside the door to Sousuke’s apartment. She quickly fixes her slightly dishevelled hair, and then rings the doorbell. For some reason, she feels a little out of breath even though she hasn’t been running. A few seconds pass, and finally Sousuke opens the door. He almost looks surprised upon seeing Gou, which surprises _her_.

“Hey,” he says. “Come in.”

“Pardon the intrusion,” she replies as he lets her in, and Sousuke laughs softly.

“You’re pardoned. You’re free to feel right at home; I’ll come join you soon, just gotta turn down the stove.”

Only then does Gou smell the delicious food cooking in the kitchen. She hums, closing her eyes briefly. “It smells great.”

“I hope it tastes that way, too. Wine?”

“That would be great, thank you.”

Gou sees herself into the living room, and not-so-discreetly inspects it. The entire apartment is sparsely decorated, but she could have guessed that Sousuke isn’t someone to care for details or having too many belongings littering the already fairly minimal space he has. It feels exactly like Gou imagines a bachelor’s flat would, except it’s a lot cleaner. Then there’s also the fact that Sousuke actually cooks, unlike many modern bachelors whom Gou have heard to only survive on instant meals or takeout.

For some reason, while she’s looking around the apartment, Gou gets curious about Sousuke’s family; if he has siblings, if he’s in regular contact with his parents. Kisumi once hinted to her that Haruka hasn’t talked to his parents since he was a teenager, and that he doesn’t feel even a little bit bad about it. Makoto has a good relationship with his entire family, and Kisumi is on good terms with his uncle, but Gou knows nothing more of Kisumi’s family, or really anyone else’s.

Sousuke returns from the kitchen with two glasses of wine, handing one over to Gou.

“Thank you,” she says. “Where’s it from?”

“Italy; it’s a Ripasso. One of my favourites.”

Gou swirls her glass, takes a sip, and nods once she’s let the flavours register on her tongue. “It has been a while since I last had a Ripasso wine. It’s very good.”

“Glad we share the same taste in wine,” Sousuke says with a smile. “So, how was your day?”

“It was good, fairly peaceful. Makoto showed up at the shop today, buying books for his students.”

“Right, he talked about that. They finally decided on a book, huh?”

“Three books, actually,” Gou says, and she laughs. “Makoto himself is going to have a lot to read now because of it.”

Sousuke snorts. “Yeah, well, he likes reading, so I don’t think he’ll mind it.”

“I suppose. How was your day, Sousuke?”

He shrugs. “Same old. Halfway through a project right now; it’s an entire floor with new offices for an IT-company that we’re working with. It’s a huge place, and it’s going to take a lot of time in total. But I suppose it’s pretty fun.”

“Pardon my straightforwardness, but you don’t sound like you think it’s very much fun.”

This time, Sousuke’s reply lingers on his tongue a little too long for Gou to think she’s just misheard him. “I’m kind of considering whether I should quit my job and find something new, or stay because this is what I’m good at. I feel like I’m done, you know? Nothing more to learn or discover.”

Now that’s a feeling Gou knows all too well. She puts her glass down on the coffee table, choosing her words carefully as to not come off as insensitive. “I think you should dare to be impulsive every now and then. You are still fairly young, and you can afford to try out a new path in life even if you decide it isn’t for you. I would say go for it, but ultimately, that’s obviously up for you to decide.”

Sousuke hums in thought, crossing his arms over his chest. “I suppose so, yeah. Well, I’m semi-actively thinking about it, so we’ll see.” He gets up from the couch, stretching out his hand to Gou. “About time we had dinner, hmm?”

“Yes please, I’m starving.”

Gou stands up, and the two bring their wine glasses into the kitchen, where Gou sits down by the table to wait for dinner to be served. It’s a beef stew with potatoes, carrots, onions and other wonderfully smelling things that has obviously been simmering on the stove for a while. She understands now why Sousuke picked this wine—it’ll go perfectly with the stew and the potatoes.

She had no idea what to expect, but Gou is still surprised by how amazing Sousuke’s food is. This is definitely one option Sousuke could consider in terms of a new profession: getting into the restaurant business. It isn’t anything for Gou as she isn’t very imaginative and creative when it comes to food, and she knows she probably wouldn’t like the stressful environment.

“Have you thought of becoming a chef?” she asks. “This stew is one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time, and I’m sure you cook other meals very well, too.”

Sousuke smiles a little. “I’ve thought about it, yeah. I’m glad you think so, Shiori, thanks. We’ll see if I ever make one of these possibilities a reality; it would definitely be interesting getting into something new.”

“I suppose it depends on how many times you start over,” Gou says, mostly to herself. “But yes, of course—if you’ve been stuck in the same place for a while, it is only healthy to look for something else.”

Gou sometimes dreams that her situation is completely different, that she’s only moving around every now and then because she’s yearning for something new. She’s tired of moving around, she wants to settle down, but Gou may never be able to. She’s constantly chasing the horizon, hoping stupidly that she’ll one day get closer though she never does. There isn’t a light at the end of her tunnel, there is only darkness and she can barely navigate her way forward as she sometimes feels like she has gotten herself turned around at some point along the way.

Following dinner, they move to the living room and pour their third glasses of wine. Gou has gotten to know so many things about Sousuke tonight, about his past, his odd quirks, what he likes and dislikes. In return, Gou shares a few things about herself, though she remains careful. It would be unfair of her to only let Sousuke be the one to talk about himself, and he seems like the kind of person who dislikes talking about himself so much, as well.

“You know, I really am sorry that I was so forward with you from the start,” Sousuke says. “I just… knew I had to get to know you the second I saw you.”

Gou shrugs, and hopes he continues to talk without her having to say anything, because she doesn’t know just how to respond. Does she regret responding to his brazenness the way she has done so far? So far, she doesn’t, though she knows there’s a risk she might. The last thing she wants is to lead him on, yet she feels like she probably is leading him on by having gone out with him twice now. She wants this, of course, but the question is if she can have it this time around. Only time will tell, but Gou is scared of letting too much time pass in case history repeats itself.

“I’ve never been like this with anyone before,” Sousuke admits. “I haven’t known how to. And I might still not know, only you could let me know this. I knew I screwed up in the beginning, so I—”

He interrupts himself by laughing sarcastically, probably at himself.

“I bought you flowers as an attempt to smooth things over.”

Gou turns to face him, and her heart beats a little faster for a second when their eyes meet. She finds him so incredibly captivating it’s scary; she doesn’t want to take her eyes away because she fears missing out on something she may never see again. It almost feels as if she’s the deer in headlights that looks at the car in front of it but is unable to move.

She gets so lost in the moment that it takes a second too long for her to notice that Sousuke is moving in closer. Gou blinks a few times, smiles and turns her head again, looking ahead of her instead.

“I’m still taking care of those flowers, you know. They have a surprising longevity; most flowers wither quickly.”

“Honestly, I don’t know much about flowers, but that seems like a good thing.”

Gou laughs. “Oh, it is.”

“Well, you could tell me just about anything and I’d believe you. I mean, I know almost nothing about you, Shiori.”

She looks back at Sousuke again, and there’s a hint of what she feels like is dejection in his eyes. Still, she can’t give in. “It’s better this way.”

“No, it really isn’t.”

Sousuke is making it very hard for Gou to keep her secret from him. She wants to tell him, but she doesn’t know how to, and what he would do with the information. No amount of time spent getting to know Sousuke would magically help Gou decide to let Sousuke know, because it’s all on her. The decision ultimately has to be made by Gou, and she can’t make the decision. She knows nothing of this thing that has stopped her from getting even a day older, how would she even begin to explain it to an outsider? It was hard enough to explain it to her family, but someone like Sousuke?

He leans in closer, once again showing his stubbornness and how much he wants this. Gou follows her heart and ignores her mind, and she meets him in a kiss.

 

* * *

 

When Gou wakes, she does so in a bed that isn’t her own. It takes a few seconds to register her surroundings, and when she does, she notices an arm slung across her middle from behind. She turns her head and sees that Sousuke is still asleep, and the sight makes her smile.

“Good morning,” she says. No reaction. “Please wake up and move, some of us have to work.”

He very obviously pretends not to hear her, but Gou can see his eyes move beneath his eyelids, and the very slightest twitch of the corners of his mouth. She laughs.

“Oh, I see. You’re holding me hostage.”

Finally, Sousuke opens his eyes. “Will you be back?”

Gou hesitates, and ultimately decides not to respond. She kisses his arm, and pries his leg off from where it’s been wrapped around hers, proceeding to get out of bed. Sousuke is still laying in bed while she is getting dressed, and neither of them are saying anything even as he eventually gets up to dress himself as well.

Sousuke offers a simple breakfast and coffee before Gou has to leave, which she is grateful for. It’s a good thing that the bookshop doesn’t open early in the morning, so Gou doesn’t have to hurry just yet. Sousuke, however, has to leave sooner than she does, so he offers to give her a ride home so she can at least shower and get changed before work.

Despite the fact that it’s been quite a few hours since Gou left Yui food and water, Yui has barely eaten or drank anything. She’s asleep on the couch when Gou comes home, though, so Gou decides not to disturb her companion. She showers and gets dressed, and is out of the house again within half an hour. The leaves have started falling from the trees, and they’re slowly shifting colours from green to red, orange, and yellow. Despite the colder temperatures, Gou really likes autumn because of how colourful things are.

There is what sounds like a not-so-serious argument going on when Gou arrives at work, and the participants of said argument are Chigusa and Kisumi. Gou walks on over to the front to see what all the fuss is about.

“… worst films I’ve ever seen. In fact, _all_ of his films are terrible.”

Kisumi gasps in horror, putting a hand over his chest. Gou has quickly learnt how much he loves to pretend like he’s a dramatic person. He really isn’t, he’s a relatively carefree and easy-going person, but there seems to be a part of him that might have wished he became an actor instead of a bookshop clerk.

“But ‘Lady in the Water’ was cool!”

“It was not!” Chigusa fires back. “It was boring, dragged out, the script was downright shitty—not to mention the _actors_. You can’t be serious, Kis.”

Gou laughs quietly, shaking her head, and she goes out back where Aki is rummaging through her purse.

“What a start to the day, huh?” Aki says.

“Indeed. They aren’t serious, are they?”

“Kisumi isn’t, but Chigusa hasn’t understood that yet.”

Gou smiles, and raises her eyebrows slightly. “Will she?”

“Who knows. I mean, who _could_ like the film they’re talking about? You’ve seen it, right?”

“I have, yes. Unfortunately.”

Aki laughs humourlessly. “‘Unfortunately’ is a good way to put it. Obviously, Kisumi is just fooling around. He likes to do that with Chigusa because he knows she gets riled up so easily.”

“That’s so… delightfully mean.”

“‘Delightfully mean’?” Aki asks after snort-laughing. “You know, Shiori, sometimes I wonder if maybe you’re a little old lady trapped inside a young woman’s body.”

Gou rolls her eyes and smiles. “You have no idea how many times I’ve asked myself the same thing.”

During the deadest of hours, Gou takes the liberty of getting comfortable and reading books they have in the shop. If she is to recommend books, modern or classics, she should have at least read some of them and know what she’s talking about. In all of the time she has spent living, travelling and moving, Gou has read many books, but obviously, books are constantly being published, so she has to continue keeping up. No matter for how long Gou has lived and will continue to live, she takes comfort in the fact that she will never be able to say she has read every book there is to read. There are simply too many, and Gou feels a lot better thinking of things that way.

The second Gou steps inside her apartment coming home from work, she knows something isn’t right. Nothing seems out of place when she looks around, as if someone had been in her apartment, no—something just _feels_ wrong. She calls for Yui, but when the cat doesn’t immediately run out to greet Gou like she always does, Gou gets worried. She takes her shoes off in the hallway, and starts looking through the apartment.

None of Gou’s cats have been outdoor cats, simply because Gou knows that outdoor cats tend to live shorter lives, and because the vet bills get higher. Even if cats are relatively safe from being harmed by humans, there’s no telling what other animals might do to her cats. As far as Gou has been able to tell, her cats were absolutely fine with being indoors, save for when they would be let out on the balcony under supervision.

Gou finds Yui on the living room floor right next to the couch. All it takes is that sight, and it brings Gou to her knees right next to her cat, her companion since many years back. Gou carefully lifts Yui into her arms, and Yui barely responds to it. The first thing that comes to mind is that Gou has to get Yui to a veterinarian, so she hurries over to where she left her phone, and calls a taxi. She just hopes she won’t end up in a taxi belonging to an insensitive prick who doesn’t want a potentially dying animal in their car.

Thankfully, that isn’t the case. Her taxi driver is very understanding and takes Gou to the nearest clinic where she gets out, tips the man for his kindness, and rushes inside the vet clinic with Yui in her cage.

The look on the veterinarian’s face when he’s examining Yui says most everything Gou could need, but not want, to know. Her heart sinks in her chest, and she swallows hard to try and rid her throat from the lump that has formed, but to no avail.

“Her kidneys are failing, to put it short,” he says. “Toxins are building up in there, and her body can’t keep up with it, can’t handle it.”

Gou exhales a shuddering breath. “Is she in pain?”

“It’s difficult to say, I’m afraid.”

She’s done this so many times before, but Gou never gets used to having to say goodbye to her pets. When they’ve been a part of her decreasing family for so long, Gou gets attached to them as if they were her own children. It doesn’t matter if they’re animals or humans, losing them hurts either way, and just as much.

Even before she asks, Gou knows the answer. But she has to ask, anyway, just in case there’s a miraculous solution to this. “If you were me… what would you do?”

The vet looks from Yui to Gou, and he takes off his glasses, hooking them in his chest pocket. “I would think about… all of the good times you’ve had with Yui, and what a fantastic life she’s lived.”

Gou sniffles, and wipes a stubborn tear that falls despite her efforts. “Can I… get a moment alone with her?”

“Of course.”

Saying goodbye sucks. Gou completely crumbles once the door closes, and she gently pets Yui who is most likely taking her last few breaths in that moment. Yui makes a great effort to turn her head and look up at Gou, and she tries to meow, but the sound that comes out is but a whisper. The sight is so heart-breaking, as it always is, and Gou can’t bear to prolong it. She kisses her cat goodbye, and exits the room to let the veterinarian know.

Instead of taking a taxi home, Gou decides to walk. She doesn’t care about the people who walk past her and cast concerning looks her way as she’s most definitely not looking ‘normal’ right now. Though, what _is_ normal? Would it have been more socially acceptable if she had walked down the street laughing to herself? Probably not. Everyone has days during which they aren’t in their best moods, and passers-by just have to accept that this is one of those days for Gou, when she doesn’t feel like taking a taxi home and instead has to walk home because she doesn’t own a car.

When she turns the corner to arrive at her apartment building, Gou sees a familiar figure standing outside, and she stops. Sousuke notices her, and lifts his hand in a wave before starting to walk over to where she is.

“Hey,” he says. “I tried calling you, but your phone was off.”

Well, it didn’t take that long before he got her number. Gou barely remembers turning her phone off in the taxi on the way to the vet. She doesn’t even take it out of her pocket to turn it on, because it doesn’t matter. The only person who would apparently want to contact her right now is standing right in front of her, anyway.

“How did you find out where I live?” she asks.

“The shop,” Sousuke replies. “Should I not have?”

“I just had to put my cat down.”

Sousuke lowers his eyebrows in a concerned frown, and Gou hates that look of pity she’s seen so many times throughout her life. “I’m so sorry, Shiori, I—”

“This is too much. I can’t handle this, we… we should stop seeing each other.”

“Wait, what? Really? Why?!”

Gou walks past Sousuke, ignoring him as he calls after her, and she hurriedly makes her way inside the apartment complex and up the stairs to her apartment. She stops right outside the door and hesitates, however, because only then does it hit her that she’s coming back home to an apartment where she lives alone, again. Her hand grips the door handle tight, and after what feels like half an eternity, Gou inserts the key into the lock, opens the door, and heads inside.

It’s very quiet. No Yui to greet her when she comes back. Now she doesn’t have a reason to keep the litter box, the scratch post, the water and food bowls or any of Yui’s cat toys around, because she left Yui at the vet clinic to be put down. The strong feeling of guilt is nauseating, and Gou collapses onto the floor. The second she does, she cries.


	5. like a cruel prank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gou reunites with her brother, and with her past.

Gou calls in sick the next day. She gets rid of every last trace of Yui: her bowls, scratching post, litter box—everything. She stuffs the toys into a box that she’ll place outside the apartment building the next time she leaves the apartment, so that another cat can get use of the toys that Yui won’t ever play with anymore. Despite her age, Yui had maintained her playful and kitten-like side, which was one of the many things Gou loved about her.

This is the last time Gou has a pet, she decides. Every time her cats die, she’s reminded of her own cruel fate of being doomed to live forever, and she’s also reminded of the fact that people and animals around her won’t. She’s tired, so tired, because it never ends.

“ _I’m so sorry, Gou. I struggle to find the right words to comfort you with, but I also know you don’t want them right now._ ”

Gou wipes her nose with the end of her sleeve. “Thanks, Rin. I’m thinking of going to see you. Is that okay?”

“ _Oh, I’d love to see you, of course. But can you just up and leave like that? What about work?_ ”

She snorts. “Family comes first. They’ll understand if I say it’s a family matter, and I wouldn’t be lying if I said it, either.”

“ _I suppose you’re right. Well, I’d be so happy to see you, and I know Akira would be, too._ ”

Gou smiles a little to herself. “I’m glad to hear that. I’ll send you a text message when I’ve booked a flight and such.”

“ _Okay. Have a safe trip, and I'll see you soon._ ”

Almost immediately after hanging up, Gou looks for a last-minute flight to Yokohama. They exist, but they certainly don’t come cheap. Gou thinks of what she told Rin earlier about family always coming first, and that’s what convinces her to ignore the price tag and just go for it. She doesn’t know just how many more times she’ll be able to see her brother in person before he passes away. He certainly doesn’t act his age, but he _has_ lived for over a century now, and people generally don’t live that long.

The earliest flight out of Iwatobi to Tokyo leaves in two days. Gou packs lightly in her luggage, and tells her co-workers about her plans of visiting family for a few days. She had no doubts they would understand and let her go without any questions, and she was right in believing so. She wants to ask them not to tell Sousuke, but that would only bring about questions Gou doesn’t want to answer, so she leaves it out completely instead.

Flying out of Iwami, Gou is relieved to know beforehand that the flight time is just over an hour. She hates flying, but knows it’s a necessity when she has to travel such great distances and cut time as short as possible. She may have all the time in the world, but others certainly don’t, especially those who have lived longer than her and don’t share her ‘condition’. How life would’ve been so much easier if Gou had someone to share all of this time with. Someone who didn’t just _try_ to understand, but they would actually understand as they lived with it, too.

It’s a fantasy Gou knows is far more supernatural than what happened to her eighty years ago.

From Haneda, Gou takes the train to Yokohama, and lastly a taxi to where Rin lives. Being back in Yokohama brings about conflicted feelings. Gou is glad to recognise the streets even though they’ve certainly changed since she was last here. At the same time, Gou feels sad to be back here, knowing what chased her away in the first place, and the things that have followed since then. In the end, she’s more happy about it, because her destination is her brother’s house, and she wants nothing more than to see him right now.

Finally standing outside, Gou takes a deep breath, and prepares for an emotional storm as she rings the doorbell. The storm rolls in the very microsecond Gou lays eyes on Rin as he opens the door, and she sheds tears again when Rin takes her into his arms.

“Gou,” he whispers. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“I’m really glad to see you, too,” she cries. “You have no idea how much I needed this.”

Rin laughs softly, and pets her hair. “What are older brothers for? Come in, let’s not just stand here like a couple of idiots.”

She’s relieved to know that, despite his age, Rin really hasn’t changed.

When they get inside, Rin makes the mistake of telling Gou to feel like at home. She does as she’s told and commands Rin to go sit while she heads straight into the kitchen to make them some tea. He may be her older brother, but Gou has long since learnt how to win against Rin in arguments like these, and today is certainly not an exception.

“I may be a hundred and ten years old now, but I could still take you down in a fight, Gou.”

Gou laughs. “Careful with those words, now; you might be forced to eat them.”

With the tea served in the living room, Gou finally gets to sit down and talk to her brother face-to-face again. It’s very nice to get a break away from Iwatobi; it’s been a little too much in just the past few weeks, and she hasn’t lived there long at all. Despite all of this, the good parts outweigh the bad ones, in the end, and she knows that moving to Iwatobi was a good decision. The town is just what she needs after everything that’s happened so far, but unfortunately, it won’t be where she settles down for good, because she’ll have to move again when she’s lived there for about a decade.

The siblings catch up on lost time, talk about what has happened in their lives since the last time they saw each other in person. Rin’s life has winded down in recent years, but he thinks it’s nice and that it’s also about time, since he’s been physically active for most of his life as a member of law enforcement. Despite having retired a long time ago, Rin doesn’t like it when people call him old, because he says he doesn’t feel that way. Gou agrees to some extent, but she knows Rin won’t live forever, and despite his own feelings on the matter, Gou can definitely tell that Rin has aged physically.

It’s difficult to witness her brother—who’s only really a year older than her—at this age, because it reminds Gou of the fact that she would have been like him at this point had she not been cursed all those years ago to live a life as an eternal twenty-nine year old. What would life had been like had she not been miraculously brought back to life in the lake that night? Would she have lived this long? One thing is for certain, and that is that Gou would have been around more for family-related matters. She would have been able to spend more time with her family, with her daughter, because no one would have been chasing her in the first place.

She sighs, and leans back against the couch. Sousuke comes to mind, and guilt washes over her like cold water. If only things would have been different, she could have accepted him, let him into her life. Even though he may be a little rough around the edges and maybe he doesn’t always think twice before speaking or doing, but Gou knows he means well.

Rin is, like Gou, a person who likes to catalogue memories. He has several books filled with photos from when they were young all the way up to now with Akira and his family, and it brings Gou mixed emotions when she looks through these. The last time she was featured in a photo, she stood next to fourteen-year old Nanami who was Gou’s height by then, and it was right around the time Gou realised something just wasn’t right with herself. Ever since, Gou stopped appearing in photographs, avoiding cameras to the best of her ability and denying having her photo taken whenever someone would ask.

Seeing Nanami again makes Gou both sad and bitter about things have gone in their lives. She’s still unable to forgive herself for not being around Nanami as much near the end; despite really having wanted to, Gou was deathly afraid of people trying to take her away to turn her into some sick experiment.

“You know,” Rin says carefully. “We don’t have to look through these.”

Gou shakes her head, though she doesn’t look up to meet his gaze. “I want to. It’s good seeing her again, albeit only in photographs.”

“If you say so.”

Rin flips the page, and they see a photo of Gou with Masayuki that Gou had no idea existed. Obviously, neither of them are looking into the camera; the photo is taken from the side when Gou has just jumped up on Masayuki’s back from behind, and they’re both laughing. It’s a great photograph, and it makes Gou smile at the memory. They had been visiting his family to celebrate Obon, which thankfully fell on a weekend that year, so none of them had to take time off work. She remembers so many details from that trip that it may as well have happened last week, yet it was centuries ago by this point.

She looks away from the photo out the window, and lets out a sigh that comes out louder than she had intended it to.

“What’s wrong?” Rin asks, and Gou almost wants to laugh. What _isn’t_?

“I’m just… tired of running,” she replies. “Tired of lying to good people.”

“Then don’t,” Rin says as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. “Stop running. Who is chasing you these days? Anyone who was even a little bit suspicious is long gone. Do you not miss having someone to love, Gou? You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

Gou clenches her fist, and she closes her eyes briefly. “There’s no point if there isn’t a future.”

“What are you talking about? You’ve got nothing _but_ future!”

“I mean a future together,” she explains. “Without a shared future, love is just… heartbreak, you know?”

Rin scoffs and waves a hand dismissively. “How many times haven’t I had my heart broken? How many times do you think others have? That’s just how life goes. Hell, if I had your looks and energy, I’d fall in love again tomorrow.”

Gou laughs, and she wipes away a tear. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I definitely would. Promise.”

She thinks about Sousuke, and feels sad and guilty again. Gou hates the way she’s treated him, how she has led him on only to push him away. She’s amazed he has kept trying to win her over despite her difficulties. She likes him, she really does, but since she knows she can’t have a future with him, she hesitates. She hesitates, yet she can’t help herself from being pulled towards him once more. It’s like when the positive sides of magnets meet—they push the other away and there’s no way for them to get close. Except in this case, Gou is the one pushing Sousuke away.

“I actually did meet someone,” Gou confesses, and Rin’s eyes widen immediately upon the revelation.

“You did? When?!”

“Oh, a few weeks ago; we met at a party through common friends.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me this? Gou!”

Gou smiles, but then she sighs. “I didn’t want to say anything because I knew it wasn’t going to last. He’s a very kind and thoughtful man—though very forward—but I was… I was so cruel to him, Rin. I told him we should stop seeing each other, and then I just left without answering the questions he kept bombarding me with.”

“You idiot,” he says, and gently bumps her shoulder with his. “When you get back to Iwatobi, you tell him you’re sorry and that you made a mistake.”

“I can’t, I—”

“But you can. Do something good for yourself, Gou. It’s been too long.”

 

* * *

 

The few days Gou spent in her hometown were exhilarating while also emotional, and she’s glad she decided on going. Who knows just how long time they have left? Gou wants to make the most of it, to make sure she won’t regret anything by the time it’s too late. Which, similarly yet differently, is why she ends up right outside Sousuke’s apartment building the very same evening she comes back from Yokohama. Gou knows she would regret this if she didn’t seize the opportunity she now has.

She’s about to walk inside when she stops, hesitating once more. What if he isn’t at home? What if he, finally, has realised that she is too flighty? Maybe it is too late, after all. But Gou tries to motivate herself, telling herself that she’s there to apologise, to ask for a second chance. If she doesn’t ask, she’ll never know what his answer would be.

Gou walks inside and takes the lift up to Sousuke’s apartment. This time, she doesn’t hesitate when she stands outside his door, so she rings the doorbell and takes a deep breath to prepare herself for whatever comes next. It’s very different when Sousuke is standing right in front of her, when their eyes meet, because suddenly, Gou wants to run away again because she’s scared he’ll turn her down.

“I wanted to say that I’m sorry,” she begins, talking too fast and clumsily. “I treated you with disrespect and I apologise for that. I really have no excuse other than to say that I am the way that I am, and I’m trying to change. I came here to ask you for another chance.”

Does Gou have a reason as to why he should? No, but she has to try regardless. Right now, Sousuke only looks surprised, so Gou doesn’t know just how he’s reacted to her mini-speech. He does, however, not look angry by her sudden appearance right outside his door, so that’s a start.

“This was… really unexpected,” Sousuke says, and his voice sounds dazed, like his mind is someplace far away. But his gaze is steady; he’s right here, and Gou can’t blame him for sounding and looking the way he does right now. “But I’m so glad you’re here, Shiori. And of course I’ll give you a second chance; hell, I should be the one asking you for a third. Or fourth? I’ve honestly lost count—what does that say about me?”

Gou shakes her head, but she isn’t about to argue who’s screwed up more than the other. Instead, she smiles. “Thank you.”

Sousuke takes a step forward to pull Gou into his arms. She melts into his embrace, closing her eyes and taking him in. Not a lot of time has passed since they last saw each other, but to Gou it feels like it’s been a lot longer. Rin’s words definitely affected her, working as the hand that pushed Gou forward and made her make a decision she never would have otherwise.

They eventually make their way inside the apartment, their lips barely separating as they clumsily navigate towards the bedroom. Articles of clothing are strewn across the floor as they go, and by the time they’re in the bedroom, only their undergarments remain. The moonlight shines in from the window, barely blocked out by the curtain, casting the room in a beautiful blue light.

Sousuke stops, separating himself slightly from Gou, and she looks at him, confused.

“What is it?”

He has his hands on her arms, and lets his one thumb run softly along her skin. It gives Gou chills, and she briefly closes her eyes.

“I just think you’re beautiful.”

Gou smiles again, and she stands on her toes to plant a soft kiss to his lips. Sousuke catches her before she can get away, and as they resume their kisses, they move further back and fall onto the bed, finally, with Gou on top of Sousuke. He looks up at her, placing a hand on her cheek, and he regards her for a short moment before he continues where they’d left off. Unlike last time Gou was at Sousuke’s apartment, they now have sex while sober, and Gou is able to feel and discover more as a result. She loves feeling Sousuke’s heartbeat against her own when their bodies are practically intertwined. She adores how attentive he is, how he so effortlessly communicates to her what he wants, what he feels, without a saying a word.

Laying on her back post-sex, Gou stares up at the ceiling. Sousuke headed to the bathroom briefly to clean up and discard his condom, but he returns after a few minutes, laying down next to Gou again. He takes her hand in his, and kisses the backside of it. Then he seems to notice something, and as Gou looks at him, she knows what it is.

“Wondering about the scar?”

“Yeah. What happened?”

Gou shrugs. She had been out hiking with Hironobu for two days in Kyoto, and on the way down, she had caught herself on a branch in an attempt not to fall as she slipped on a rock. As a result, she cut herself pretty badly, but thankfully, Hironobu was there to patch her up. Once they’d gotten down from the hiking trail and back into the city, Gou had visited the hospital to get her wound properly taken care of. She had a few stitches, and that’s why she now has a little scar on the side of her right hand.

“It was a hiking accident,” Gou says, and laughs softly. “I slipped and tried catching myself. I both succeeded and failed, I suppose.”

Sousuke lowers his eyebrows briefly, appearing concerned. “Oh.”

Gou wonders if there’s ever a time when Sousuke is thinking about all of the holes in the stories she tells him. If he ever wanted to ask for more details, he has yet to do so. Others have done so, but why hasn’t he? Whenever Gou has been asked for more than she can give, she always dodges the question or answers it with a lie. She’s done it so many times she can do it without flinching these days, for the most part. What has kept these kinds of questions at a minimum is probably the fact that Gou moves around so often that people don’t have time to get close enough. Even if they did, Gou won’t let them.

“I know that this is probably the last thing you want to hear right now,” Sousuke says. “I have to say it, though, because it’s been on my mind. I… know we just met, kind of. But I can’t imagine my life without you in it now. I’m falling in love with you, Shiori.”

The words hit like a few small daggers in her chest, and Gou finds it hard to breathe for a few seconds. She has been looking away from it on purpose, because she is in the same boat. This was why she kept trying to keep Sousuke at a distance, yet her growing feelings made it difficult to stick to that decision.

“I don’t know what to say,” Gou says honestly, because she really doesn’t know. She doesn’t want to say it back, though truthfully it is how she feels.

“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know how I feel.”

Gou chews on the inside of her lower lip, and chooses to stay quiet. Sousuke kisses the top of her head, but he doesn’t say anything, either.

 

* * *

 

Come the next day, Gou doesn’t have to hurry to work, and neither does Sousuke. They spend a little time in bed talking and enjoying the morning together, which Gou thinks is a great start to the day. Sousuke makes them a fairly late lunch which he acts like it took no effort to make, but the soup is incredibly flavourful and Gou tries to memorise the flavours to try and mimic them herself in her own cooking. She really wants to remind Sousuke of that possible career path he could take should he not be satisfied with his current profession, but she doesn’t want to nag. It would be very interesting to see him in the restaurant business one day, though.

“I know this is really sudden, and I’m sorry,” Sousuke says. “But I have to drop off a box of old CD’s to Dad’s friend in a bit. I sort of promised I’d do it today since I’d be free, and nearly forgot. Do you wanna come with me?”

Gou smiles a little. “That’s fine. Yes, I can come with you. Your father’s friend?”

“Yeah… they knew each other since they were really young. Dad passed away a few years ago, but his ‘brother from another mother’ is… well, not at all representing his age. He acts a lot younger.”

It reminds Gou of Rin, funnily enough. Meanwhile, Gou is the exact opposite—still old-fashioned in her ways, but youthful in appearance. Interesting how that turned out.

“I see. I look forward to meeting him, then,” Gou replies.

The box of CDs really is a _full_ box—it’s almost packed to the brim with different kinds of albums and it’s very heavy. Gou doesn’t want to snoop through the entire box, but she does card through the first few just to get an idea of what kind of taste in music that this man has. She doesn’t even know what Sousuke listens to, and the funny thing is that she thinks he could listen to just about anything. Once she finds out what he actually likes, it’ll probably make a lot more sense.

Driving over to their new destination takes less time than Gou had expected. They stop outside of a cute little house overlooking the beach, which reminds Gou very much of the kind of houses she lived in when she was still a child. It’s almost as if time has stopped for a long time in this particular part of Iwatobi. It’s very ironic considering how close it is to the beach and tourist-attractive areas, but Gou finds some strange kind of comfort in the fact that there are some places where apparently people are too stubborn to change.

On the way out of the car, Gou attempts to grab the box of CDs, but Sousuke is faster.

“Nuh-uh,” he says. “Let a strong man like myself carry it.”

“Oh,” Gou replies with a challenging tone to her voice. “Are you implying I wouldn’t be able to carry it myself?”

“Well, no, but it’s only fair I do it. I dragged you here with me, so I get to do the heavy lifting as a compromise.”

Gou snorts. “Sure, whatever you say, big guy.”

He doesn’t make it very far, however, before his phone rings in his pocket and he quickly seems to realise he won’t be able to pick it up with one hand and carry the box with the other. Gou can’t help but laugh at how quickly he gets frantic and clueless as to what to do in this clearly very tricky situation. She holds her arms out and signs for him to hand it over, and with surprisingly little hesitation, Sousuke plants the box in her arms before picking up.

“Yeah? A little, but make it quick… They’re in Matsuda’s car, I think. Why do you need them now?”

Gou lightly kicks Sousuke in the shin, and he nods before continuing to walk towards the house, still talking on the phone. She doesn’t want to admit it, but the box is actually a little heavier than what she had expected out of a box filled with nothing but CDs. It doesn’t help that the box is also very cumbersome and difficult to get a steady grip of, but luckily she doesn’t have to walk very far before she can set it down. Now Gou sort of understands why Sousuke offered to carry it,finds it cute how Sousuke tries to be thoughtful and nice but it comes out in a clumsy way. At least he’s trying.

Sousuke rings the doorbell for them while trying to finish his phone call with an obviously very talkative co-worker. He nods quickly several times to the person on the phone who can’t see him, anyway, constantly saying ‘yeah’, ‘uh-huh’, ‘sure’, and other things that the other person doesn’t seem to understand are his ways of trying to cut the call short. Finally, just as the door opens, Sousuke manages to hang up. Gou has to peek to the side of the box as she can’t see over it, not even if she lowers the box a little since she’d probably drop it then.

“Well, this was certainly a nice surprise. I didn’t know you would show up so soon.”

“I did promise,” Sousuke replies. “This is everything Dad had left. If there’s anything you don’t want, you can sell it. I don’t mind, and I’m sure Dad wouldn’t either. Oh, uh, this is Kugimiya Shiori… holding the box.”

On cue, Gou hands over the box. When she feels someone grab it from the other side, she lowers the box so she can get a look of the man they’ve come to visit. When their eyes meet, he looks at Gou for a few seconds too long for it to be natural, and Gou feels a little uncomfortable by it. He doesn’t look at her in a creepy way, no—but something about her tells her this isn’t how he or anyone greets someone new.

“Matsuoka,” he says. “… Gou.”

Her heart stops beating for a few seconds too long when she hears a name no one but Rin has uttered recently. She almost drops the box because of how hard the shock hits her.

“Who?” Sousuke laughs. “I said Shiori. Maybe you really _are_ getting too old, Hiro.”

 _Hiro_.

Gou swallows hard, and tries to regain her composure. “She was my mother,” she lies, trying desperately to keep her voice steady. “Did you… know her?”

Hironobu blinks a few times, appearing very confused. He then laughs awkwardly before taking the box from Gou and setting it down on the ground next to him instead. “Yeah. Yeah! I knew her when she… when she lived in Osaka.”

She feels like she’s floating, like she’s detached from her physical body and that her soul has separated from it. It feels almost as if she’s dreaming, because the chances of this actually happening are so unrealistically low that it could only happen in dreams, or even nightmares.

“Oh, yes,” Gou replies. “She lived there in the sixties. Mother studied there for a few years before moving to Yokohama where— where she met my father.”

“You must be joking.” _No, but definitely lying_. “You… you look so much like her. The resemblance is truly uncanny. You must hear this a lot, I assume.”

Gou attempts to laugh, but it comes out like Hiro’s just moments ago. Awkward, forced, unnatural. “Yes. For as long as I can remember.”

It feels like this moment has lasted for an hour, yet it has been mere minutes. Amidst the shock and the memories that came flooding back to Gou, she almost forgot about where she is, who she’s here with, and what they are doing here. But it’s very easy to get lost in the past when something as unlikely as this happens. It feels almost as unlikely as the time when Gou regained consciousness in the lake, nearly drowning and freezing cold.

Why is Hironobu in Iwatobi, of all places? What led him here? The gods must have really had fun setting up this meeting, and they probably had the audacity to call it a prank, too. Gou wants to run, but she knows she’ll only make it more obvious if she does, that she isn’t telling the truth to either Sousuke or Hironobu. Oh, but what does it matter if all she has done since the accident was lie to whoever she met? This meeting does not change any of that, in fact, it just reminds Gou of how she needs to continue to lie, and to run. She hasn’t been in Iwatobi for long, but she now realises that maybe it’s been _too_ long, anyway.

Maybe this time what she needs is to leave the country altogether. Why hasn’t she done so before? The only reason she can think of is her family. Rin is the only close family member she has left now, and she still doesn’t want to leave him behind now that he has gotten so old. She knows she would never be able to forgive herself should she not be there for when he draws his last breath. Even though she’s supposed to be the younger sister by a single year, she will outlive Rin, as she has everyone else. She outlived her daughter, even, and Gou has still not let herself forget that nor has she forgiven herself for not having been there for Nanami as much as a mother should be for her daughter.

“Well, come on in!” Hironobu says after a while, attempting to let the tense atmosphere dissipate. “I would feel bad if you drove all the way here and immediately had to leave again. Would you like some coffee or tea?”

“Coffee sounds great. Shiori, what do you think?”

Gou nods slowly. “Yes, I agree on coffee. Thank you.”

Hironobu walks on ahead inside the house, telling Sousuke and Gou to make themselves at home in the living room while he brews coffee. They sit down on the couch, and Gou still can’t really come out of the daze she was left in after meeting Hironobu after all these years. She remembers their very first meeting, when her car had stopped working and he came by on his bicycle, helping her to get the car started again. Then, on a complete whim because Gou had yet to learn to be careful at that point, she had turned her car around to pick him up.

In the weeks that followed, Gou fell head over heels in love, and would only later realise how big her mistake was. Now, over fifty years later, they meet once more and Gou still remembers things as if they happened recently.

She looks to her side when Sousuke takes her hand. “Are you okay?” he asks.

Gou smiles a little, and she squeezes Sousuke’s hand back softly. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry about what happened out there; I don’t know what the hell happened. He’s probably just getting old, is all.”

“It’s fine. It just caught me off guard, I suppose.”

Sousuke kisses Gou on the side of her head. “Okay.”

“Sorry for the wait,” comes Hironobu’s voice as he walks into the living room. He carries a tray with a coffee pot and cups, which he places down on the coffee table before sitting down in an armchair to their side. “I must say, Shiori, this is a very strange coincidence. What brings you to Iwatobi of all places?”

 _I would love to ask you the same thing_ , she thinks. “I just wanted a change. Change of scenery, jobs, getting a chance to meet new people.”

“She’s been all over the country at this point,” Sousuke fills in. “Most of us have moved a few times, but Shiori’s on a different level. Completely.”

Hironobu raises his eyebrows and hums as he pours them coffee. “Yes, I see you take after Gou in that aspect. She really liked moving around, didn’t she?”

The guilt Gou had felt after leaving Hironobu returned once she met him again, but she takes some comfort in the fact that he now has gotten some made-up closure. She knows that what she did to Hironobu was far from right and kind; leaving him at the time when their relationship was at its highest point and never contacting him again. Of course, Gou didn’t plan to leave him when she did, it just had to happen when it did because of everything that had happened in what felt like the blink of an eye.

She is silently thankful that she doesn’t have to lie about ‘her mother’ having passed away and when she would have done so. Considering how old Hironobu is at this point, he’s probably figured out already that ‘Gou’ must have passed away a few years ago considering she’s more than just a few years older than him.

“She did, yes. All of her travelling had to slow down quite a bit once she met my father, however.”

Hironobu laughs. “I can imagine so. Ah, I just realised I never asked how you two met! All of this made me forget why you are here and why Gou’s daughter is with Sousuke now.”

“We met at a party a few months ago, through common friends,” Sousuke says. “It was instant for me; I knew I just had to get to know her.”

“And he certainly let me know,” Gou smiles, briefly leaning her head against Sousuke’s shoulder.

“Yeah, well, I—”

And then Sousuke’s phone rings again. He sighs loudly, irritably, and he gets up from the couch. “Sorry,” he says. “I have to take this. Work.”

He disappears out of the living room, answering the phone. His voice disappears as the front door shuts behind him, and Gou assumes it’s either something unusually serious for it to be related to what he does for a living, or he’s going to be unpleasant and loud so he left the house to be considerate to the people who aren’t involved.

“An interesting man for sure,” Hironobu says, shrugging. “Some days he is a sloth, some days you wonder if maybe you dreamt he was.”

Gou can’t help but laugh at that. “A sloth?”

“A sloth, yes. Low-energy, low-maintenance. His father used to scold him for it, and I suppose that is what eventually led him to injuring his shoulder in high school. He may not be _my_ son, but I certainly felt bad watching him as he saw his dreams die right in front of him.”

“And his father didn’t?”

“He did, but he… did not exactly show it,” Hironobu replies. “Tough love is what they call it, I hear.”

“I see. I didn’t know this.”

“Sousuke doesn’t talk about himself a lot. He asks others about themselves instead; I assume he does so to distract people from assaulting him with questions he doesn’t want to answer.”

Gou ponders those words, lowering her eyebrows slightly. Now she understands what the others have told her about Sousuke, how they always say he doesn’t talk much while Gou has experienced the opposite. She realises, though, that what Hironobu says checks out. Sousuke does talk a lot, but not about himself. Whenever he does, he keeps it short, but Gou never got the impression he did it because he’s uncomfortable; Sousuke just comes off as the kind of person who can at times be a man of few words, but in other situations he’s funny, talkative and in general an almost completely different person.

She lifts her mug to empty it of the coffee Hironobu served. It was very good and had very faint hints of cinnamon; something Gou isn’t used to. She usually drinks her coffee plain black or with a splash of cream in it, otherwise she hasn’t tried out other flavours like this. The flavour is very fitting for the season where leaves are falling off trees and covering the ground in various colours.

“Why did you lie, Gou?”

Gou looks up at Hironobu, who now looks straight at her with a stern look that frightens her, even more so because he used that name again. “What do you mean? Gou was my—”

“Don’t lie to me. Please. I know… who you are. The scar on your hand… I sewed that wound up myself; I should know.”

Gou lets her hands fall to her lap, and she clenches them slowly into fists before she relaxes the muscles in them again. She doesn’t dare to look Hironobu in the eyes now, because she knows they’re seeking the truth, and she’s deathly afraid of giving it to him though she knows she damn well has to, now that she got found out by something she can’t possibly call a coincidence. There can only be so many coincidences, and even if they do occur, Hironobu never believed in them.

The second she realised who he was, Gou knew there were risks involved in being around him. One part of her knew she couldn’t just get up and leave because it would make Sousuke suspicious. The other part of her… probably wanted to stay regardless of the risks. Did she want to get found out? Gou doesn’t know. She assumes that her subconscious wanted to be selfish and talk to him again after all this time, now that Gou knows he has yet to pass away like the others of their past, and also because… they _have_ a past. Together.

Gou loved Masayuki, but she loved Hironobu, too. She betrayed him against her own will, leaving him when in reality, things had been going very well for them and he could definitely have become a proper part of her and Nanami’s family, if Gou hadn’t known beforehand that she would have to leave him someday.

“Hiro…”

It feels… strange; Gou feels almost relieved that someone finally found out, yet she’s terrified for that same reason. As if someone pressed a button, Gou sheds a tear which is quickly followed by another, and then she’s full-out crying. Hiro gets up from his armchair and sits next to Gou on the couch, placing a hand on her arm.

“How is this _possible_? What… what happened?”

“I—I don’t know,” she says. “At first, I was… normal. And then I stopped.”

He exhales a long sigh, sounding almost relieved. “I thought I was losing my mind, Gou. This… this is why you left, isn’t it?”

She nods. “I wanted so badly to tell you. But I couldn’t… You know what they’d do to me.”

“… I do.”

Memories of being dragged into a car by PSIA agents come back to Gou, and she shakes her head to try and rid her mind of them. What would have happened to her had she not managed to get away that time? Would she have been able to escape had they found her again? Would it have been better for her to have gone to the hospital directly following the accident, would it have made any difference? At this point, all Gou can do is wonder, but she will never have the answers. And maybe it’s for the best now, because she managed to run away, she managed to escape the people who wanted to get to her.

“Have you told anyone?” Hironobu asks. “I imagine Nanami knows.”

“Knew, yes, she… she knew of it. But I haven’t told anyone else.” Gou sniffles, wiping away tears. “If I would have told anyone, it would have been Sousuke.”

She involuntarily tenses up again, looking up at the front door which Sousuke had exited through minutes ago. What if he walks in on this, how would they explain it? Gou would have to tell him, and she doesn’t know how she’d even begin to. Hironobu knows of her past, and it was even difficult to explain to him, even though she barely did and he still seemed to understand, somehow.

“Don’t run, Gou. For… for Sousuke. Stay.”

This time, Gou looks at Hironobu, and she stands up as she does so. “I don’t know how to.”


	6. shooting stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Go back, Gou."

She’s a lot faster than him, so when Hironobu attempts to grab her, he’s too slow, too late. Gou runs out into the hallway, grabs Sousuke’s car keys, and steps into her shoes before she opens the door and leaves the house as fast as she can. On her way out, she sees Sousuke standing a bit away from the house, and gladly he has his back turned to her so that he can’t see her running away again.

“Gou!”

She hears Hironobu’s voice behind her, but Gou keeps running. She knows that Hiro’s shout attracted Sousuke’s attention, so she’s sure Sousuke will be following her as well, probably going instead of Hiro. Gou runs over to Sousuke’s car and jumps inside, quickly turning the key in the ignition to start the engine. She gets the car running just before Sousuke manages to catch up, and then she drives away from the beach, away from her past and present.

Her destination isn’t the apartment, and neither is it Sousuke’s, for obvious reasons. Gou drives, drives without a destination set. It doesn’t matter that she has left many things in her apartment, because she can always start anew—she always does. It really is the worst, though, because now that Gou dared getting close to someone, she fell so hard it hurts now. Was it destined that she was going to meet Hironobu again? Was this why she met Sousuke? Was it all organised so that Gou would remember her so-called condition and that she is doomed to live alone?

As to be expected, Gou’s phone starts ringing in her pocket. She takes it out, but she doesn’t answer; instead, she hangs up. Of course, Sousuke just keeps calling after she’s hung up, so Gou continues to let her phone ring and she tosses it onto the passenger seat next to her before driving through downtown Iwatobi. She thinks of all the people she’s met and befriended here in such a short amount of time, she thinks about her job that she has grown to love. About the fact that she met a man who was so perfect for her that it hurt knowing she would have to let him go, too.

Eternal youth costs Gou literally everything else that would make her life normal and enjoyable. It really isn’t as nice as one would think, as fiction makes it out to be. Gou remembers how she used to find the concept fascinating as a child, as a teen, because the books she read described it so beautifully and without flaws. It _has_ flaws, it’s not a positive thing—it is a curse and it closes more doors than it opens.

Gou parks on the outskirts of downtown Iwatobi, close to a little forest. She grabs her phone again, clearing all eight missed calls from Sousuke and instead decides to call Rin. Her thoughts are running so fast around in her mind that she isn’t thinking clearly, and she needs a distraction, a voice to pull her back up.

“ _Hello? Gou?_ ”

Gou’s lower lip quivers at the mere sound of her brother’s voice. “Rin…”

“ _What’s wrong?_ ”

“Everything,” she says. “I met Hironobu.”

“ _You did what?!_ ” he almost yells. “ _How the hell did that happen?_ ”

“I don’t know! He’s… he’s a friend of Sousuke’s father. He recognised me, and I tried to lie to him, but he… he knew. And I couldn’t hide it.”

Rin doesn’t say anything for a few far too long seconds. Then, Gou hears him sigh. “ _So you ran away?_ ”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

“ _Oh, I don’t know, maybe stop running. You have to let yourself live again, Gou. You’ve been alive for so long, yet you haven’t lived a life in over eighty years. Are you not tired yet?_ ”

Gou leans back in her seat, pinching the bridge of her nose and furrowing her eyebrows. “Of course I’m tired, Rin. I’ve been tired of this for so long that… that’s all I am. I’m tired.”

“ _Then you should stop. Allow yourself to love, and to live. Things are very different now from eighty years ago, I can promise you that._ ”

“And if someone asks why I just can’t seem to age?”

“ _Well, of course you would have to tell them the truth._ ”

Gou scoffs, rolling her eyes. “You say that like it wouldn’t involve a risk to tell just about anyone who were to ask me about this. What if someone gets jealous or something and they try to get me hurt? What then?”

“ _You can’t keep thinking about the what ifs or you’ll never be able to live a normal life. Of course there are risks to take in doing this, but you can probably figure out for yourself who you decide to tell and who hasn’t earned themselves the right to know. In their case… of course you lie. As people do with most everything else_.”

He makes it sound so natural and normal, as if it’s all painfully obvious. It makes Gou angry, because at first it sounds like Rin is brushing off her worries as if they aren’t warranted. But she knows that isn’t the case, of course.

“I really wish you would say something else,” she says and laughs.

“ _I know you do, but I’m going to tell you what you don’t want to hear because I love you. And because I think you’re stupid._ ”

“Thank you, that’s most kind of you.”

Rin chuckles. “ _Oh, I know._ ”

Gou thinks of all the times she’s moved. Of all the people and pets she has lost over the years. All of the people she has met that she had to move away from in the end. She thinks of how excruciatingly difficult it has always been, no matter how many times she has gone through this. They say you get used to things after you’ve done them a few times, but Gou hasn’t gotten used to the heartbreak and anguish that comes after moving or losing dear ones. She used to think that a blank slate was exciting since it meant she could do with it as she pleased. Now, she sees it as nothing but pages torn from a book that have been crumpled up and thrown away. All that effort for nothing, all those years wasted. All of that time spent not living a proper life.

She’s tired of running, of lying, moving, distancing herself from people. All Gou wants is for her life to be… normal. And maybe it all starts with her.

“I think… maybe you’re right,” Gou says. “Maybe I should stop running.”

Rin laughs again, though this time he sounds relieved, happy. “ _I know I’m right. Go back, Gou._ ”

“I will. Thanks, Rin. I love you.”

_“I love you too.”_

She hangs up, and the second she does, Gou feels lighter than she has done in years—decades, even. A laughter bubbles up from her throat and escapes her lips, tears fall down her cheeks. This time she isn’t being naïve, this time Gou knows it’ll be different, because she’s _making_ the difference. It won’t just come to her, so she’ll have to do something herself for things to change.

With new motivation and energy surging throughout her body, Gou starts the engine again and turns the wheel to go back. Back to Sousuke, back to the life she’s only just started to build here in Iwatobi. If it comes to a point where she might have to move again, maybe Sousuke would want to come with her. This won’t change the fact that she’ll still continue to outlive her loved ones and her friends, of course, and it’s going to continue to be difficult whenever she has to part ways with them. But this one rather big change in the way Gou lives her life might make it a little bit more… liveable.

As Gou starts driving back, she notices how it’s already gotten fairly dark out. The last thing she ate was Sousuke’s homemade lunch, and then she had coffee at Hironobu’s. When she gets back, she decides she’ll take Sousuke out to dinner, when she’ll tell him of everything he should know. Normally, Gou would be hesitant because of how the other person might respond, but she thinks Sousuke will just be glad to know why she’s always been so flighty and secretive. No more secrets.

Gou realises she hasn’t driven around Iwatobi until now, and she sees her new hometown from a new perspective… from a stolen car. Well, Sousuke will get it back, so it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Iwatobi is beautiful at night even when you’re seeing it from a car window. Suddenly, Gou spots a shooting star in the sky, and she’s absolutely mesmerised by the sight. It’s so bright in the night sky, and it’s a beautiful but tragic sight to see a star fall. It’s so bright, unnaturally so, and Gou squints before she looks ahead of herself again and—

Then, a crash. Gou doesn’t know what happened or what’s happening, all she knows is that she got hit by something really hard, and that she’s tumbling, tumbling…

… and then, she loses consciousness.

 

* * *

 

_It’s bright. Very bright. Gou shields her eyes with a hand, tries to get used to the harsh light of her surroundings. Where is she? She gets up, brushes herself off. She’s cold, and upon further inspection of her condition, Gou notices a sharp pain in the side of her head. She puts her palm to it, and when she looks at it again, it’s dyed crimson. Blood? What did she… do…?_

_A memory of a crash comes back to Gou, but that was ages ago. That was when she almost drowned. What and when is this from?_

_She looks to her side and sees a car turned upside down. Next to it, she sees a familiar man. It’s Sousuke. He’s kneeling, crying, seemingly talking, but to whom? There is no one else around, it’s just them, but Sousuke doesn’t seem to notice Gou. She walks closer, sits down by Sousuke. When she tries to put a comforting hand on Sousuke’s shoulder, the hand doesn’t connect. Instead, it seems like it is simply going through, as if she is a mere ghost. Does that mean that she’s dead? Is that what this is?_

_“Don’t die,” Sousuke cries. “We’d only just gotten started. Shit… you… you can’t do this. It’s so unfair, Shiori.”_

_Shiori?_

_“My name isn’t Shiori,” Gou says. “It’s Gou.”_

_Sousuke doesn’t look up. He's kneeling on the ground, looking down at someone who isn’t lying there, someone who is actually standing next to him. Is she, though? If he can't hear her, is she really there? Why can Gou see this if Sousuke can't see her?_

_“I hear you’ve finally resolved to stop running, Mother.”_

_Gou turns around faster than she's ever done before, and by the car, she sees Nanami. The sight of her daughter brings tears to Gou’s eyes, and she draws a sharp breath at the shock that the sight brings. Nanami is young, maybe around the age when Gou stopped ageing. This makes Gou realise that this is a dream, because she has seen her daughter so much older than this. She has witnessed her daughter take her last breath, and yet… she’s here. Very much alive. The grey hair seems to be but a hallucination on Gou's side, because now, Nanami still has the same dark red-brown hair she always used to have._

_“… Nanami?”_

_”Yes, Mother. It is very good to see you.“_

_That, if anything, would be an understatement. Gou sees the happiness in Nanami's eyes and her heart swells when she sees Nanami's smile. Can they hug? Will it result in something similar to what happened when Gou tried to touch Sousuke? She's afraid to try. It feels as if the gods who made this happen wouldn't allow her to have everything. Being able to hug her daughter in this odd dimension which Gou still hasn't figured out what it is, it would probably be too generous. Considering Gou's luck, this would be too good to be true. As this sight alone already is, of course._

_”You too,“ she says in a relieved breath. ”But this... isn't real, is it?“_

_Nanami's smile has yet to fade. ”What do you think it is?“_

_”Does it matter what I think?“_

_”I think so, yes.“_

_”Then I won't answer the question. I'm afraid this will all go away when I do.“_

_Nanami nods once, laughing softly. She looks over to where Sousuke is still crouched over an invisible person who isn't lying on the ground in front of him._ _“He seems very fond of you.”_

_Gou follows Nanami's gaze and looks at Sousuke again. She smiles sadly. “He told me he’s falling in love with me.”_

_“And you said…?”_

_“That I did not know what to say.”_

_Nanami shakes her head, clicking her tongue. “You should consider yourself lucky, Mother. Be glad you get this chance of telling him your true feelings.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_The white brightness gets, impossibly, even brighter, and soon enough, Gou can’t see anything but all of the brightness that surrounds her. She can’t see Nanami, can’t see Sousuke, nor can she see his car. All she can hear are unfamiliar voices, someone talking in medical terms Gou can't wrap her mind around. Then, she hears someone count: one, two, three—_

And then, she wakes with a jolt in an unfamiliar room with bright, fluorescent lights. Her eyelids feel heavy, as if Gou hasn’t slept in years. She assumes, however, that she’s been asleep for a while now. Carefully, Gou lifts her hand to the side of her head again. This time, it doesn’t hurt. This time when she lowers her hand to look at it, it isn’t covered in blood. Instead, she felt something she assumes was gauze wrapped around her head. She must have gotten seriously hurt in that accident.

So this has to be a hospital room, then. Gou sees a chair pulled up to the side of her bed, and she wonders who has been here. Maybe more than one person has. On the table next to her bed, she sees a glass of water, her phone, and a little vase with lilies of various colours.  _Flowers_. Gou's heart skips a beat when she realises who's definitely been here to leave those. She glances at her phone, wondering how many people know she's here. In the end, she leaves her phone be; she will let them know soon enough.

Gou closes her eyes, exhales a long sigh. She sees Nanami in front of her again, smiling and seeming happy. Why did Nanami show up now, after all this time? Gou is conflicted, because as nice as it was to see Nanami again, it was also painful because Gou knew even then that it wasn't real and that she would soon return to a reality where Nanami is long since gone.

Her thoughts are interrupted when the door to her room quietly slides open. Gou turns her head to look, and she sees Sousuke. When their eyes meet, he walks over to her with long strides, bending down and planting a soft kiss to her forehead. Or rather, the gauze covering it.

“I’m so glad,” he whispers in a trembling voice. “I really thought I’d lost you.”

“How… What happened? I thought that was it, back there.”

 _How did I survive?_ is the question she really wants to ask. How did it happen again? Is she simply bad at paying attention in traffic or is it actually some sort of supernatural power at play whenever this happens? Gou wants to know why it had to be her, if this is the case. Which sadistic bastard decided she would have to live forever as a twenty-nine year old unless she were to be killed by herself or someone else?

“So did I,” Sousuke says slowly, as if he's still struggling to comprehend everything. “I guess the paramedics arrived just in time to save your life.”

“… But how?”

“Heart defibrillator. Literally, uh… shocked you back to life.”

 _Again?_  The memory of a lightning bolt and seeing the darkness under the surface of the lake Gou drove into eight decades ago comes back to her, and she wonders if maybe… maybe that's it. Maybe electricity striking her is what caused Gou to stop ageing, however that happened. To this day, Gou still doesn't know, and she doubts she ever will.

“How long was I asleep for?”

“Two days. And while you were asleep, I didn’t sleep for a second.”

She furrows her eyebrows in concern. “You should have slept, Sousuke.”

“How would I have been able to sleep when you were in here? I worried sick about you; I saw your almost-dead body frozen right beside the car, and I… I was so certain I was too late.”

“You were the one who found me?”

Sousuke shakes his head. “Two people had arrived before me, and they had just called for an ambulance when I got there. The fucker who rammed into you escaped, so we don't know who did it.”

Gou remembers the state of Sousuke’s car in her dream, and assumes it must have looked similar in reality. “I’m sorry about the car.”

Sousuke scoffs, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. “Are you kidding? The car is the least of my worries. All I care about is you being alive. Unbelievably enough.”

Gou takes his hand, and he puts his forehead against hers. “Sousuke…”

“I know why you ran away,” he says in a low voice, and Gou’s heart skips a beat. Hironobu has probably told him, and Gou is worried about just what and how much Sousuke found out from someone other than herself.

“You do?”

“Yeah. It’s because of what I said last night, isn’t it? Because I said I love you. I shouldn’t have pushed you, I should’ve just… waited. But I felt that it was right, so I—”

Gou is overcome by a wave of emotions so strong she starts crying again. She pulls him towards her for a kiss, and he’s very quick to reciprocate despite the initial shock.

“I love you too,” she says when they separate. She looks into his eyes, gaze fixed steadier than it ever has been. He smiles and then laughs, which makes Gou laugh, too. She pulls him into a hug, and closes her eyes. “There’s something else, Sousuke.”

He pulls back a bit, and looks at her with slight confusion. “What is it?”

“My name isn’t really Shiori,” she says. “It’s Gou.”

Sousuke looks at her for a few seconds as if he’s trying to figure out if this is a joke, or if he’s just pondering something. “Isn’t that what Hiro called you?”

“It is. I know this is going to be hard to believe, but… I have to tell you. Everything.”

So, after he’s sat himself down next to her, Gou tells Sousuke about who she really is. About Matsuoka Gou who in reality is 109 years old and has had an entirely different life until all of this happened. She talks about Masayuki, about Nanami, Rin, Miyako, about her true relationship with Hironobu, the reason why she started moving around and changing her name and identity every now and then. Not once does Sousuke interrupt, but Gou would completely understand if he’s too shocked to say anything. A tiny part of her is afraid he’s going to be too grossed out or otherwise disturbed to continue to be with her after this, but for the most part, Gou just wants to get it all out of her for once.

It’s strange, because while Gou feels a little scared that Sousuke is going to react negatively to getting to know all of this, she also feels exhilarated. It takes such a huge weight off her shoulders that she got used to carrying a long time ago. Now that Gou has let an outsider in on her secret, she feels light, as if she’s floating. It might also be the adrenaline that comes from finally talking about something she so desperately tried to keep a secret for so many decades, she doesn’t know—all Gou knows is that it feels great to finally be honest with others. It starts with Sousuke, but it certainly won’t end there.

Finally, when Gou is done talking, she drinks from the glass of water standing on the side table next to her hospital bed. It might have stood there for a while, but she doesn’t care; it still tastes great and feels great for her now dry throat. She allows silence to fall so that Sousuke can process everything she has told him, and doesn’t mind if it takes him a while to say anything.

She wonders how she herself had reacted if their roles had been completely switched. Thinking about it, Gou assumes she would be in disbelief that such a thing could happen to someone and that it wouldn’t just be a story someone made up for whatever reason. She wonders how Sousuke would have dealt with it, how he would have handled realising he wasn’t getting any older. How his encounter with the PSIA would have went, and whether or not he had moved around like Gou has done so far to avoid attracting suspicion.

“I’m… so sorry, Gou,” he says. “Wow, that feels weird to say. But I… I like that name, _your_ name, because it’s yours. And it’s beautiful.”

Gou smiles. “I’m glad. Thank you. And thank you for listening.”

“I can’t imagine how tired you must be of not being able to actually be yourself. How many times you must have cursed your existence—sorry if this sounds cruel—whenever people around you would pass away, or you’d have to leave them.”

“It… was never easy,” Gou concedes. “It got easier with time, yes, but it was still never _easy_. Keeping this away from people I got close to was also difficult, but what ultimately strengthened my will to keep hiding it was the fact that I could be in danger if the information ended up in the wrong person’s hands.”

Sousuke leans in close again, but he stops right where their foreheads meet. His hands gently cup Gou’s cheeks, and he softly runs his thumbs along them. “I’m glad you told me. Thank you.”

“I was afraid you would find this information to be too much to take in.”

“Well, now you know it wasn’t. It was a lot, but… not too much. Nothing I can’t handle. It must have been so much harder on _you_ , Gou.”

Now Gou just feels dumb for ever having doubted Sousuke in the first place, because he’s turned out to be way more understanding and mature about this than Gou could have ever hoped for. Her hindsight has always been impeccable, unfortunately.

The door opens behind Sousuke so fast that he jumps back a step, and Gou looks over Sousuke’s shoulder with wide eyes to see who made such a dramatic entrance. She smiles and shakes her head when she sees her brother standing in the doorway.

“Are you okay?!” he asks, rushing forward to Gou’s other side where Sousuke isn’t sitting. Sousuke himself backs off a little, and Gou wants to laugh at how cute he looks when he almost visibly shrinks in the presence of this old man.

“I’m fine, better than fine. It was just an accident.”

“ _Just an accident?_ ” Rin echoes in disbelief. “Do not dare lie to me when I can clearly see that you're injured.”

Gou finally laughs, not being able to hold it in. She takes his hand, squeezing it in hopes it will instil some calm in her brother. “I mean it, okay? Please, don’t worry. I’m fine now.”

Rin closes his eyes briefly, furrowing his brows in concern. But he apparently lets it go, as his facial expressions smooth out, and he clears his throat. “I apologise for barging in on what appears to be… a moment.” He lets go of Gou’s hand to instead shake Sousuke’s. “I’m Shiori’s grandfather, Rin,” he continues. “It’s nice to meet you.”

An awkward silence follows where Sousuke looks between Rin and Gou, obviously not sure what to say. The scene is very cute, and it makes Gou smile again. “Rin, he knows.”

Rin looks back at Gou, dumbfounded. “He knows?”

“He knows.”

Amused, Gou watches Rin’s reaction slowly go from surprised to shocked, and then to relieved. With tears in his eyes, he leans over Gou to hug Sousuke, who gives Gou a slightly bothered look, oddly accompanied by a lopsided smile.

"I told you," Gou says to Rin. "I'm fine now."

 

* * *

 

A year later, it’s New Year’s Eve, and they’re about to leave the house to attend Kisumi and Makoto’s party to bring in the new year. Gou has finally decided on something to wear for the evening, but she’s still struggling with getting her hair to stay the way she wants it to. Now, it’s grown so long that it’s starting to get difficult to put up in different hairstyles, and she’s made a mental note to get it cut shorter soon. Obviously, that won’t happen until next year.

Both she and Sousuke had, to no avail, attempted to get Rin to attend the party with them. Gou understands that maybe these ‘shindigs’ aren’t for him, and he’s said a few times by now that he’s perfectly fine with staying back at home, ‘keeping the cat company’. Knowing their friends, Gou is certain Makoto and Kisumi will send her and Sousuke back home with leftovers for Rin to enjoy so he can ‘enjoy the better parts of the evening’. That is, if Kisumi gets to decide on what quote to say when they leave.

“Come on, Gou, let’s go already. We’ll miss the midnight countdown at this rate.”

“Very funny,” Gou calls back to Sousuke out in the living room. She looks back at her reflection, rolling her eyes before tending to the last little details. As she tucks in a few strands of her hair behind her ear, Gou notices something… new. And old. She twirls a strand of hair around her index finger, tugging at it until it comes off. It’s thicker, wiry, and it definitely doesn’t match her hair colour. It sticks out, but it does so in a way that makes Gou so happy it brings tears to her eyes.

“Did you fall asl—oh. Everything okay?”

Sousuke appears in the doorway to the bathroom when Gou is studying the hair she’s pulled off her head. She turns to him with tears in her eyes, and she smiles wider than she’s probably smiled in a while as she shows him what she’s holding.

“It’s… grey?”

Gou nods. “It’s grey. It’s not just okay, Sousuke, it’s… it’s perfect.”

 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://radiodread.tumblr.com) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/natastrophies)


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